Kavya Gupta will serve as the next editor in chief of The Daily Californian for the 2023-2024 academic year. 

After joining as a strategic development analyst in spring 2021, Gupta served as the assistant development manager and later the assistant managing publisher. Beginning in summer 2021, she joined the editorial division as a general assignment news reporter, later serving as an academics and administration beat reporter, lead race and diversity beat reporter and deputy news editor. Gupta is currently the spring 2023 city news editor.

As editor in chief, Gupta aims to repair and improve community relations and transparency with the paper’s audiences. Journalism, according to Gupta, is facing a reckoning with public trust and the need to improve truthfulness in reporting. She hopes to bring this reckoning to The Daily Californian through honest and transparent journalism. 

Additionally, Gupta’s experience as one of few staff members to work in both the editorial and business divisions allows her to have a “very unique perspective” on the paper.

Aditya Katewa, managing editor of the newspaper, also noted that this cross-department experience is something that few others have within the paper. At a time when structural changes between editorial and business mark a period of transition for the Daily Cal’s internal operations, Katewa looks forward to Gupta taking charge and ensuring the paper has a strong future to step into. 

“I know for a fact that Kavya is going to be the one to take us there, and she’s going to do an amazing job while she’s at it,” Katewa added. 

Katherine Shok, The Daily Californian’s current editor in chief, added that Gupta’s experiences gives her a “macro perspective” of the paper that will serve her well.

According to Shok, Gupta has seen the evolution of different projects within the paper and hopes that Gupta has the foundation she needs to flourish. 

“Kavya has thought a lot about what being EIC means practically and idealistically,” Shok said. “She has the full toolkit for being in editorial and business to make her dreams come true, and I hope to see them come true.”

Defne Karabatur, creative director of the Daily Cal, said Gupta’s work ethic and engagement with staff demonstrate her passion for not only the newspaper and its content, but for the people within it. 

Karabatur noted Gupta is someone who is very “community oriented” and eager to collaborate with staff across different departments, as seen through roundtable discussions that she helped host this spring. 

“I’m looking forward to being a voice for our staff at this paper,” Gupta said. “I’m very excited to oversee this transition of business into editorial and seeing our staffers on the same page of what journalism means to us, what The Daily Californian means to us, what Berkeley means to us and how we want to do a good job of bringing that information to our readers.”