After four years of writing and editing for The Emory Wheel across a variety of sections, Madi Olivier (25C) and Sophia Peyser (25C) ended their terms as co-editors-in-chief (EICs) on March 10.
The duo’s tenure as co-editors-in-chief was marked by a flurry of protests about the Israel-Hamas war and coverage of the 2024 Presidential Election. Their term also saw the Wheel win multiple awards, including being named Best All-Around Student Newspaper by the Society of Professional Journalists.
During her time at the Wheel, Olivier served as a writer for the news section, eventually becoming a section editor for the news section and later managing editor of news and diversity, equity and inclusion. Later this year, Olivier will graduate with a major in Psychology and a minor in Rhetoric, Writing and Information Design.
Peyser began writing for the Wheel at the beginning of her first year, initially serving as an opinion writer and an Editorial Board member. Eventually, she became the section editor for both the Opinion section becoming managing editor for both the Opinion section and the Editorial Board. This spring she will graduate with majors in both Creative Writing and Environmental Science.
After graduation, Olivier hopes to work in the victim advocacy field before pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and Peyser hopes to pursue a career in journalism.
Olivier and Peyser sat down with the Wheel to discuss their time at Emory University and their experiences as EICs.
This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.
The Emory Wheel: Going into your term as co-editors-in-chief, what would you say your main goals were and how do you feel like you’ve executed upon them?
Olivier: Our main goal was to foster more community at the Wheel, was one of the big ones, because there was a lot of difficulties with that the year before, a lot of people quit. I don’t remember the number, but several editors hightailed out of there. We wanted to correct that and make sure it was more of a fun place where people were friends first and foremost — because then that, in turn, would make a better environment where we could produce better work, which I think we achieved pretty well. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re better friends now and people seem to have more fun at meetings. So we’re very proud of that.
Peyser: Our logic was people are going to be spending like 40 hours a week here and they’re not going to keep doing it if they’re not having fun doing it. So we’ve got to make sure there’s a good community and people are friends, which was really cool to see, ultimately, the fact that people are goofing off in editors meetings and are actually having fun together and people like to be here super-duper late, which is insane to us … Beyond that, we had some more aspirational goals like most editors-in-chiefs do like forming an alumni board or changing the finances of it all, but we had a pretty crazy term from the second we entered office, so we didn’t have much extra time to actually implement any long-term changes like that.
Olivier: Our goals had to shift a lot as we started, which is the nature of the job. And our goals shifted from these long-term, foundational organizational goals to just surviving each day, … especially during the protests and doing the best we could, remaining as unbiased as we could and making sure we were covering both sides and trying to cover the protests on the ground whenever. It was our first few weeks as editor-in-chief and Sophia was abroad in Ireland, editing on the side of the road in a party dress, was kind of difficult. So we were trying to figure that out as we went and we’re both very proud of how that played out and the work we did.
TEW: Can you talk through the protests of last spring and how navigating it was, especially with one of you being abroad and one of you being in Atlanta?
Peyser: At times, abroad wasn’t ideal because there was only one person who could be awake at certain hours and it was only Madi who could be in the office, on the ground. But from a different standpoint, because there was this insane, 24/7 news cycle happening, it was good to have us on different schedules. I would get to stuff really early in the morning or really late at night, Atlanta time. And then Madi would take the other shift when I was asleep. There was somebody awake at all times for any news that was happening. And it was kind of tough because I remember during this protest, there was always uncertainty about what would happen at midnight, because that's when people could get kicked off the Quad. So we had to make sure somebody was up at midnight.
Olivier: It actually helped a good bit, especially with doing print too on top of all of this. Sophia would usually wake up as we were finishing up print, so [she] could kind of look over things. So it helped actually, a good bit. But at the same time, obviously, there was difficulties with us trying to coordinate everyone and make sure we had someone on the Quad at all times. Her being abroad wasn’t as much of a difficulty as I expected it to be. It was mainly just the nature of the protests is gonna be difficult to cover regardless: 24-hour coverage, people on the Quad at all times. There’s a lot of ethical calls that come with that. We had some mistakes. We also had some really good coverage. That’s what kind of comes with it with us learning. At the end of the day, overall, we’re very proud of how it ended up. We got a lot of national media attention for our coverage as well, so I think we did a lot of good work that people recognized.
Peyser: A lot of that is credit to the really good staff as well. The fact that people were really willing to get on the ground, be in the action was so important. We had really, really good photographs that [Managing Editor Jack Rutherford] (27C) took and [Editor-in-Chief Spencer Friedland] (26C) took that were publicized in national photo essays. And that was because they were willing to get up close with it, which I think is a really good journalism lesson for everybody, that you should be in the action as opposed to outside observing it.
Olivier: We had a lot of editors. We had people shuttling over from Oxford. We had a Sports editor from Oxford coming over, Arts and Life editors were doing it. We had sports editors doing it, copy editors, it was an all hands on deck situation. A lot of people stepped up to help cover the news that normally wouldn’t write stuff for that section. We all definitely really appreciated how all the editors who were on campus at that time really stepped in to help us navigate all of it, even though it wasn’t normally their responsibility, so we would not have been able to do it without the whole staff there helping out.
TEW: What have you both enjoyed most about working with one another?
Peyser: Everything about working with Madi is awesome. I told Madi this, that my dad was like, “Thank God you did it with her.” Madi and I have come to share one brain when it comes to editorial decisions, where I know exactly what she’s gonna say to something and I think that she knows what I’m gonna say to something, which is super useful, especially when we’re doing sometimes things separately, where only she can go to this meeting or only I can go to this meeting. I know that we’ll say the same thing, which is a really cool thing.
Beyond that, I think that both of us hear the voices of our Wheel forefathers in our heads. Sometimes we think through ethical choices, and I’m like, “Oh my God. What would [Faculty Advisor Hank] Klibanoff do? Or what would [former Editor-in-Chief Matthew Chupack] (24C) do? Or what would [former Editor-in-Chief Sarah Davis] (22Ox, 24C) do?” That’s a cool thing, when you can get into that headspace because you’ve worked so closely with people.
Olivier: I think it also helped that we just like each other as people. I think if we hated each other, this would have been a miserable experience. We saw each other more than our own roommates. I talked to her before my parents most days. It just really helped that we like each other as people and we could be friends outside of the Wheel, too. Because it’s a hard job, there’s difficult decisions you have to make and sometimes the only way to get through it is that you have to be able to laugh about it or make it or make it enjoyable as you can, and having someone that you’re friends with really helps with that. It wouldn’t have been nearly as fun if I wasn’t doing it with Sophia.
TEW: As writers, which have been your most memorable or your favorite articles you’ve written?
Olivier: I have two that come to mind immediately. The first one being, obviously, breaking the news about the arrests on the Quad. That was me, Spencer, Jack and Sarah all working together on it. We were all there when it happened, trying to talk to people. Police wouldn’t tell us what was happening. I was recording on my phone as people were getting dragged away. And then we sat at the metal tables along Cox Bridge and just wrote it together. And I think that helped a lot, and that was a very interesting experience, and continuing with coverage with that. Very proud of that one. A lot of people liked our really detailed coverage on that because comparing it to national outlets, ours had a lot more detail in it.
Another one that I’ll always remember — this was one of the first articles I wrote. It was about the use of slurs in the [Emory University School of Law]. It’s the one that always comes to mind because it was my first major article at the Wheel and I wrote it with Matthew. We became very, very good friends after, that kind of brought us together. It was about professors using slurs in the law school, like the homophobic F-slur and the N-word, quite often, concerningly, and how that obviously sparked a lot of debate about open expression and freedom of speech in the classroom and pedagogy. We did several articles in the following years about free speech at the law school in general, so it kind of started a series, almost, about free speech at Emory, which has become, obviously, a much bigger issue in the past couple years. So it's interesting that my time at the Wheel began and ended with free speech on campus, just in different ways.
Peyser: I had so much fun with the election in the fall. I got to interview [Sen.] Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), which was awesome. He was the first really high-profile person I’d ever interviewed. And it was in the press gaggle outside of the [Alumni Memorial University Center (AMUC)] where he rolled up in his car, he came out and it was me and this guy from [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution] and a guy from WABE all standing in a circle, all trying to talk to him at once. And he was like, “Let’s hear from the Wheel first.” It was so exciting and cool to hear. The article itself was really fun and interesting because it kind of spoke to this moment where this high-profile person was coming to Emory because Emory votes mattered. And Emory, obviously, was going to play a role in the election in the way that Georgia was gonna go. And it was a moment of uncertainty as well, that I think spoke to a broader climate of uncertainty about that election, so I had a lot of fun with that. And just watching the Wheel do election coverage was such a point of pride for me. Madi and I are both really, really proud of that election print, where every single story is good and unique and Emory-specific but also election-specific. And that was a really cool experience.
Olivier: Staying in the newsroom until 7 a.m. to finish that print because we were waiting for them to call it. Jack brought in a bunch of computers, a big flat-screen TV, we were all watching it together. That’s definitely a memory where neither one of us can forget. The whole print was very good. Every single article, even Sports managed to pull out election pieces even though that’s not typically gonna go hand in hand. I’m very proud of that.
TEW: What are your favorite memories from the Wheel?
Olivier: I made some of my best friends in college through the Wheel. Specifically, I’m thinking Matthew Chupack, Tiffany Namkung (24C) and Claire Fenton (24C), I’m very close with all of them still. Meeting all of them and forming that friendship at college. Because you hear about, “In college, you’re gonna find your people.” And my people are ultimately through the Wheel.
Also, this is recent, but I keep thinking about how I caught a ball during [kickball between the Wheel and The Emory Spoke]. I would like to point that out. That is my moment. My sports-loving dad was very proud of his non-athletic journalist daughter for catching a ball.
Peyser: I think Wheel-Spoke kickball was really, really fun, especially because I’m close with the Spoke EIC, so it was fun to see some real competition happening. But beyond that, I’ve enjoyed every single transition moment at the Wheel where turnover is happening and everyone is … celebrating the end of an era and actually reflecting on what the Wheel means to us. Leaving the Wheel has really made me consider how much time I’ve spent here and what it’s brought me because, like Madi, the Wheel has brought me two of my best friends, [former Editorial Board Editor Marc Goedemans] (25C) and [former Opinion Editor Saanvi Nayar] (26C), as well as Madi herself.
A lot of my college experience has been spent here and there are a lot of difficult memories. Staying up until 5 a.m. working on something is not my favorite thing in the entire universe, but with that comes really really good, special times, … just chatting with people about what comes next has been really special.
TEW: Is there anything else you want to talk about?
Olivier: I’m most excited to see what comes next. We both put a lot of time into the Wheel, we obviously love this organization a lot, or else we wouldn’t be sitting in the office until 5 a.m. every other week to do print. But we’re also both ready to go on to our next steps and let Spencer and [Editor-in-Chief Ellie Fivas] (24Ox, 26C) take over. I think they’re going to do great. They’re both so prepared to run the Wheel. They’re coming from News and Opinion like we were. We both trained them and I think they’re gonna do a great job, so I’m excited to see what they do next with it. I think they have a lot of great ideas.
Peyser: It’s a cool, full-circle moment for us ... Ellie and Spencer watched us assume our positions at the Wheel, watched our transitions into Editor-in-Chief. And in the same way we’ve watched them come from mere assistant editors and they’ve both grown so much. And their editing has improved so much. Their ethical calls have improved so much. We’d call them both friends, so I’m really excited to see what they do with the Wheel. It's obviously hard to pass down your baby, especially when you've invested so much time into it, into an unknown phase. But I think they're gonna do great and we're really excited to see what happens, and who knows, maybe you'll see us come back as staff writers.
