After serving in numerous positions at The Crimson White throughout her collegiate career, Rebecca Griesbach will soon be the paper’s editor-in-chief. On Wednesday, the Media Planning Board elected Griesbach to the position for the 2020-21 academic year.

“Rebecca brings an incredible amount of experience as a student journalist to this job,” said Mark Mayfield, the Office of Student Media’s associate director of editorial, who advises The Crimson White. “She’s had an outstanding student media career up until now, and I’m looking forward to the next year as her as editor-in-chief of The Crimson White. She will do an outstanding job and continue to strengthen and build upon the legacy of the outstanding journalistic reputation of The Crimson White.”

Griesbach, a graduate student in the Department of Gender and Race Studies, initially began working at the CW as a designer and contributing writer during the spring of her freshman year. She joined the CW after an illustrious high school journalism career in which she won Alabama Journalist of the Year, awarded by the Alabama Scholastic Press Association. She continued to grow as a journalist at The University of Alabama, largely through her work with the Crimson White. After working as the lead page designer during her sophomore year, Griesbach served as both production and managing editor as a junior. Griesbach has most recently served as news editor.

“I’ve always said that it is important for an editor-in-chief to be able to successfully perform every single job on the staff in order to be an effective leader, and there is no doubt in my mind that Rebecca has that quality,” said Savannah Bullard, The Crimson White’s current editor-in-chief. “Rebecca is truly a jack of all trades. Everything she sets her mind to, she can accomplish with grace and prestige.”

Griesbach will take over once Bullard graduates in May, but she already set her sights on achieving several goals.

“I think Savannah has done a great job laying the groundwork and getting a lot of things done, and I want to continue in that spirit pushing the boundaries on social media, recruitment and design,” Griesbach said. “I’m excited about seeing all of my reporters and all of the people currently on the staff continue to do great work. I’ll be sad to see all of the seniors leave, but there’s a bright future ahead.”

Griesbach’s main objective as editor-in-chief will be to improve the paper’s newsroom diversity with targeted recruiting.

“My vision, platform is based on increasing staff diversity and also increasing coverage areas,” Griesbach said. “I want to do diversity training and have more development opportunities for younger staff members and especially those from underrepresented groups.”

Along with increasing diversity, Griesbach will seek to improve the paper’s social media presence and bolster its data-driven journalism.

Bullard is confident that The Crimson White’s future is in good hands.

“Her resume is astounding, and her work can speak for itself,” Bullard said. “I am so proud of her and am very confident that she will shine in this new role.”