Natalie Nordseth 05/08/06
Title: Stop the Presses
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Natalie Nordseth, editor in chief of the Los Angeles Loyolan, LMU's student newspaper, understands what matters most when it comes to gathering campus news.
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Natalie Nordseth sits at a desk in her shared office on the second floor of Daum Hall, surrounded by the tools of the trade that a solid newspaperwoman needs.
Nordseth has a phone, a computer, and on the shelves to her left, stacks of reporter's notebooks. Better still, Nordseth, a senior-to-be and the editor in chief of the Los Angeles Loyolan, LMU's student newspaper, also has a keen mind, a sense of purpose, and an understanding that her job is not necessarily to make friends. Instead, it is to seek out, discover, and report the truth – however inconvenient, or socially awkward, that might be.
"It's always difficult to write about things that happen with fellow college students," Nordseth says, soon adding, "but I think that’s kind of a role of the newspaper, that we have to keep the leaders on campus – whether they're students or the administration – accountable."
During the 2005-2006 school year, while serving as the student government beat writer, Nordseth wrote about an unconstitutional closed-door meeting, and a mistake in the way the student body presidential elections have been conducted. Both stories, it would appear, led directly to institutional reform.
During her three-year tenure with the Loyolan, Nordseth has also chronicled various hazing incidents. In adding to her news coverage, during her sophomore year, she wrote "It's All Nat," a weekly op-ed column.
As a senior, the Dallas, Texas native and communications and political science double major will oversee a historic change at the periodical. To mark the occasion of the periodical's 85th anniversary, the Loyolan will become semi-weekly.
Nordseth plans to write less next year and focus more on longer-term Loyolan planning. In addition to her editing and conceptualizing duties, Nordseth and her colleagues also continue to organize LMU's annual First Amendment Week programming. In January 2005, partisan political wordsmiths Anne Coulter and James Carville spoke before a packed audience.
Nordseth resides ten minutes from the beach, and has great affection for Los Angeles – which, she points out, isn't easy for a Texan to admit – and for LMU, as well.
"We have a joke that with all of our board editorials, the basic theme is, 'We deserve better.'" Nordseth says. "And I think that's generally why we're here. Even when we write hard news things or controversial things, it's ultimately because we love our school and we want to make it better, and we see its potential."