First published in 1912, the Optimist has been a longstanding medium for students, faculty and alumni to get news about ACU and the Abilene community. The Optimist presents a unique opportunity for students with a love for journalism to get involved in their campus through the art of sharing news.
Ashley Henderson, junior journalism major from Argyle, is the current editor in chief on staff.
“We have a lot of different media outlets,” Henderson said. “We are reporting news and doing features on anything that’s happening on campus whether that’s student life or sports or really just anything that involves the community.”
The staff consists of reporters, editors, videographers and photographers. Reporters go out to the community, conduct interviews and write stories to be published. Newsletter editors design and send out the weekly newsletters, and copy editors proofread all content before publication. Videographers gather footage of events that are edited into the weekly newscast. The chief photographer manages the staff who acquires photo content.
Daniel Curd, junior advertising and public relations major from Denver, Colorado, is this year’s chief photographer.
“As a photographer, the responsibilities are going out and taking pictures at an event, coming back and editing them and doing some slight adjustments, creating a gallery on our website and then publishing them on Instagram and other means of social media,” Curd said.
Four physical print edition newspapers are released each year. The staff creates these newspapers on an online software before they are printed and distributed around campus. These important issues are released during the first day of school, Homecoming, Sing Song and graduation. A fun paper titled The Pessimist is released on April Fools’ Day containing satirical content.
Henderson said in addition to these physical copies, Optimist content can be accessed through many social media platforms.
“The Optimist has an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and we have a Youtube channel,” Henderson said. “We also have our website, acuoptimist.com and newsletter.”
This year ACUTV and the Optimist are joining together in producing content. In the past, the weekly newscast was filmed with two reporters sharing current events and news. Creative director and assistant director for ACUTV Emily Rose said she hopes these changes will increase student engagement with the content as it becomes more catered for Instagram reels and students.
“Instead of doing a newscast where we just have people sitting behind a desk …, we’re going to do weekly recaps,” Rose said. “We are going to do one to two long newscasts this semester.”
Henderson said this opportunity is a great way to get involved in journalism whether you’re in the department and looking for experience and ways to get connected or an individual who simply loves writing and aims to improve communication skills and serve the community. Those interested are encouraged to email Ashley Henderson and explain what role they are interested in and how they can help the Optimist.
“If you’re interested, I would say just go for it, reach out, see what you can do and how you can get involved,” Henderson said. “It really is a great opportunity, and it is such a blessing, and it will give you so many incredible experiences.”
