Hall of Fame Members

John Schwartz (BA ’79, JD ’84) is a climate change writer for the New York Times, where he has worked since 2000 covering science, technology, space travel, legal affairs and more. Before that, he worked at the Washington Post and at Newsweek magazine. He is the author of two books, Oddly Normal (2012, Gotham) and Short: Walking Tall When You’re Not Tall At All (2010, Flash Point). We caught up with him recently at the New York Times offices to learn more about his career path and his unusual story of how he became editor of The Daily Texan. Did […]

Daily Texan alumna Hayley Fick (BS ’15) says the coolest part of her job at NASA is working directly with astronauts, encouraging them to support NASA’s web campaigns, and helping them to develop media content and find a voice on social media. Fellow alumna Mona Behnaz Maali talked with Fick about her new position as a social media manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and how she built on the semesters of experience she gained in The Daily Texan newsroom, as well as her internships and classroom experience as a public relations major at The University of Texas […]

The summer before her first semester at the University of Texas, Lisa Falkenberg found herself in the basement of The Daily Texan. The auburn-haired freshman already had her sights set on a career in journalism. “I had a bunch of clips and my resume,” Falkenberg said. “And I walked into the news editor’s office and thought that they would be wowed by this stuff. They barely even looked at it.” She was told not to expect to get hired. She pursued the job anyway and was hired as a general-assignment reporter during her freshman year. Later she became a senior […]

Eighteen-year-old Krissah Williams Thompson found her way down the smoky basement stairs, through the heavy side door plastered with paper and stepped into The Daily Texan basement days before her freshman year began. Thompson, a Plan II and journalism major from the Houston area, signed up to try out as a reporter. Little did she know, it was just the beginning of her journalism career. “It was such a rush to be covering a community of 50,000 people while still learning the profession,” said Thompson, who writes features for The Washington Post. “It made me fall in love with journalism […]