Alex Comisar Keeps the "Daily Trojan" Newsworthy
As a new reporter for the "Daily Trojan," current Editor-in-Chief Alex Comisar was given a news beat so dynamic, so exciting, so challenging that it changed the course of his life. University Administration.
The drama of provosts and fundraising and ombudsmen may not seem compelling, but Comisar came on his beat in the middle of a massive joint lawsuit filed by USC and Urban Partners — developers of the new University Gateway — against Conquest Housing. "Those stories," he said, "are what convinced me that reporting was going to be a fun thing for me, that reporting is what I was cut out for."
He has since spent a summer interning at "Roll Call," a D.C. newspaper specializing in congressional coverage. He also took on major stories about the Los Angeles city elections for "Neon Tommy," an online news journal produced by the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, including a profile on County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. After being initially refused an interview, Comisar stood up during the public comments section of a supervisors' meeting and questioned Yaroslavsky about the refusal, which earned Comisar the interview he sought.
As the editor-in-chief of the "Daily Trojan," he is leading the paper through significant changes in its new media approach.
"Alex is a bright young journalist who has risen through the ranks to the top of the 'Daily Trojan,' " said Mona Cravens, director of Student Publications. "He is tirelessly focused on the paper's basic mission of gathering and disseminating campus news. He seeks opportunities to expand the paper's scope and has embraced new, exciting technology in producing the 'Daily Trojan' online."
Comisar's term saw the debut of the newspaper's Web site redesign — a process begun the previous year — which allowed the DT staff more control over its contents. Previously, the Web site had been run by College Publishing, an organization that manages Web sites for a number of large campus newspapers. The new dailytrojan.com is built on WordPress — a popular and flexible blogging software — which will allow streaming video, photo essays and other multimedia possibilities.
"The DT has been the source of campus news for a very long time, and my goal coming into this semester was to do all I could to be sure we stay that way," Comisar said. "We're adding blogs, we're adding multimedia, so that we can get students thinking of our organization as being synonymous with interactive, riveting campus news."
Still, the "Daily Trojan" remains primarily a print product, and the bulk of Comisar's responsibility is ensuring that reporting and coverage serve student needs. While newspapers nationwide may be undergoing identity crises, Comisar says that there's still an important, stable role for campus journalism.
"People don't get out of their dorm room beds in the morning and burst out of the door to pick up a copy of the "Daily Trojan" to read the day's news," he said. "People pick up the "Daily Trojan" when they're waiting for their next class to start, or when they're passing the time at lunch. In that way, the print product is still much more relevant than it might be in a big city where people just go to work and look at the news online."
As a senior print journalism major, Comisar knows that he'll soon have to deal with life outside the relative insulation that campus journalism enjoys. But he's confident that his experience and political reporting skills give him a strong foundation. He's considering working in a political office, communications department or anywhere that he can work with the raw materials of journalism.
"I'm still very, very passionate about journalism. I'd love it if I could make a career in the field of journalism," he said. "But I've found that the things that make me so attracted to journalism — the focus on public advocacy, the focus on elevating political discourse — those are things that can be found in a number of professions."