By Sarah Brown
Class of 2015
Why you should go to the Daily Tar Heel Birthday Weekend on Feb. 17-18 (tickets here)
Chapel Hill. I don’t think this reason needs an explanation.
Amazing professional development events, including speakers from CNN, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Pro Publica, as well as yours truly. At last year’s sessions, we learned about WaPo’s homepage strategy at a time when the homepage is not what it used to be, about the audience development side of the media business, and about one journalist’s months-long reporting process to turn out an incredible personal essay (found here: http://www.theatlantic.com/…/…/2015/12/im-not-broken/446550/).
Friends, and the opportunity to make new ones. Last year, I met DTHers from each of the past seven decades — including Gerry Cohen, class of ’71, who has also carved out a lengthy DTH legacy as a favorite StatNat source on North Carolina politics.
Basketball. For fellow sports aficionados, it’s UNC-UVA, aka a ~major~ conference matchup late in the season that could have ~major~ postseason implications. Many of you live out of state now, far from the pro-Carolina crowds at TOPO and Goodfellows. Why sit in a bar and watch the game all by yourself (sad!) when you could see it in Chapel Hill with a bunch of loud and proud UNC diehards??
Linda’s tots. Another one that doesn’t need an explanation
And this is perhaps the most important reason of all: This event is fundamentally about supporting the DTH. This is a chance for alumni to give back, financially and otherwise, to the institution that got us to where we are today. Let’s do our part to make sure this paper is around for another 124 years.
Sarah Brown worked all four years for the DTH, as State & National editor in 2014-15. She now works as a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education.