The editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel is a human being, and his name is Andy Thomason. The Editor’s Blog serves as a window into the DTH newsroom, and into the caffeinated mind of the newspaper’s public face.

Follow Andy on Twitter at @arthomason.

Why a front-page editorial? | APR 1

Regular readers of The Daily Tar Heel will find a surprise waiting for them in the boxes this morning, in the form of a bold proclamation on the way forward for UNC on sexual assault reform.

So long, Internet! | FEB 5

I remember the first time my dad showed me and my brother the Internet. We dialed up (for you young’uns out there, this is the sound it made, also known as the sound a submarine makes while crashing into an underwater cliff) and several minutes later we were there.

What's in a 'student newspaper' anyway? | FEB 1

I’ve always cringed a little at the phrase “student newspaper.” Not for any lack of accuracy, but for the connotations it carries. For instance, whenever other outlets cite a story by The Daily Tar Heel, they inevitably preface the mention with “the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s student newspaper…”

Work for a newspaper (this newspaper) | JAN 14

Sunday’s Pasadena-like temperatures in Chapel Hill reminded me why we call this semester the spring semester: because North Carolina winters are about as reliable as my landlord’s promises to remove the raccoon who has taken up residence in our ceiling.

What I'm thankful for | NOV 22

I’ve always found most Thanksgiving thankful lists to be remarkably uncreative. The vast majority seem to consist of the items the lister sees around him or her at the dinner table: family, friends, a hungry dog and football (playing on the TV in the other room).

Student government, the DTH and fighting bias | NOV 12

Ever since The Daily Tar Heel stopped receiving student fees in 1993, it’s been completely independent of the University and, by extension, student government. Hence, it bears the responsibility of covering student government. In fact, it’s virtually the only news organization that does.

How we cover presidential politics in Chapel Hill | OCT 24

In two weeks, the votes will be cast, the hanging chads will be unhung and the long-dead voters who have lent their names to the cause of democracy will still be sleeping in their bipartisan graves. Election season will be over and everyone (or most everyone) will be able to get on with their lives. But in the meantime, the DTH is charged with the peculiar task of covering a presidential election in Chapel Hill.

Mistakes were made: how we err | OCT 2

I’ve only made one error in my time reporting for the DTH that required a correction, but it was a doosy. Still a freshman, I referred to a woman I interviewed as a man. “Was it just a pronoun mixup?” you ask. Absolutely not. In my mind, this woman was a man. When I interviewed her over the phone, I had no doubt she was a woman. When I wrote the story, a few hours later, I thought of her as a man.

How we covered a chancellor stepping down | SEP 19

I was helping with a two-person analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Sleeper in my American Poetry class when Kevin Schwartz, general manager of the DTH, texted me. It read: WRAL Thorp to step down.

Why didn't we go to the Republican National Convention? | SEP 5

One of the most freely spewed criticisms of the DTH I’ve heard during my college career is that our content is hopelessly biased to the left. Undoubtedly, those who hold such a view have some extra ammunition this week.