Regular Daily readers may have been surprised to see magazines in our newsstands at the end of last semester — for 45 years, the Daily has regularly published a traditional tabloid newspaper. But on Dec. 5, 2024, the Tufts Daily Magazine made its debut.
Senior Henry Chandonnet, the magazine’s founding editor, is responsible for the concept.
Chandonnet dreamt up the idea for the magazine while busy in the Daily newsroom as a managing editor, hoping to provide himself with a dynamic project for his senior year. He has worked at a myriad of publications and, as of June, has been writing for Fast Company.
“I didn’t want to wash up, but I also was not in love with the idea of going back to writing newspaper content,” Chandonnet said. “I’ve been working in magazines for three years now, and I just like that writing a lot more. I think that it does something different than what the Daily does already.”
Chandonnet decided to bring his magazine experience to the Curtis Hall basement. Former Associate Editor Caroline Vandis (LA’24) worked closely with Chandonnet on the Daily’s managing board and remembers him hypothesizing what a magazine at the Daily would look like over the course of a semester.
“I wish I [remembered] the exact moment that it was conceptualized, because that’s kind of like being there for the Mona Lisa,” Vandis said. “I think that Henry is … such a visionary. The whole semester he would talk about what he wanted to do next, and it usually came up in the form of this magazine.”
Chandonnet said that, at the time of brainstorming, creating a magazine felt quite far away. But, by the time he was returning from studying abroad his junior spring, he was determined to make it happen.
“I was getting to the end of abroad, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m kind of either [going to] do this or nothing.’ I would rather keep a foot in the Daily [because] I care about it,” he said. “It’s a type of coverage that I didn’t think that the Daily was doing, so I pushed for it.”
The project was designed, planned and advertised almost exclusively by Chandonnet, with the support of the Daily’s managing board. He spoke with senior Rachel Liu and junior Julieta Grané, former editors-in-chief, both of whom signed off on the project.
“I think we had a conversation or two of being like, ‘I want to do this.’ And the answer was: ‘If you can do it, do it,’” he said.
In terms of assembling a team, Chandonnet tuurned to senior Olivia White, former production director. She became the magazine’s inaugural designer.
“I had worked with Olivia [during] my managing board semester, and I really trusted her,” he said. “And I also knew that she had done magazine design before, which is different than newspaper design, and so having somebody with that knowledge, I thought, would be really helpful.”
The magazine counters the Daily’s typical short-form, quickly-produced content. It offers long, complex pieces that writers work on for months before they are sent to print. By contrast, Daily writers often work on articles within a matter of weeks and pieces are reviewed and copy-edited over the span of just one day.
“I only have seven stories. … All the stories for this semester, for this issue, were assigned by the beginning of February, and then [are] not publishing until three months later,” Chandonnet said. “That gives a lot of room for me to really work with people, and that takes different forms.”
The lengthy process also offered Chandonnet an opportunity to share edits back and forth with writers in several rounds rather than in one night.
“I want to be really constructive with people,” he said. “I found it very helpful, and it makes me really happy to look at the magazine and say, not only am I happy with these stories, but the writers are happy with these stories, the designers are happy with these stories.”
The first issue featured stories on Tufts Dining, cargo bikes and even the size of pant legs. Senior Kaitlyn Wells, a former managing editor and executive features editor for the Daily, wrote about the divide between student athletes and non-athletes. As a Features section writer, she found the magazine writing to have similarities and differences from how she usually operates at the Daily.
“I found myself reverting back to the habits and writing customs that we have in Features. … Having experience in features was good preparation for writing this magazine article because it flows more like a Feats or Arts article,” Wells said. “Writing in this style for TD Mag felt more personal. … As the writer, [I] was able to be present in the article instead of being very third person.”
Chandonnet also sees the magazine as an opportunity to give Daily staff members a new way to hone their skills and try out a new writing style, as typical Daily writers are often encouraged to stay within the bounds of traditional news style guides.
“The Daily has such an amazing trove of writers and of people who care about tasks and people who are curious and want to look into things,” he said. “I wanted to give Daily writers the opportunity to expand their horizons.”
The design of the magazine also pivots sharply from the Daily’s usual content; stories are laid out in three columns rather than five, and White had more freedom in the design than layout editors usually do with the tabloid paper. Pages also had more diversity in photo and caption layout than in the traditional paper.
“I think the magazine layout is fun because it’s a lot more creative,” Aisha Karim, sophomore and executive layout editor, shared. “Olivia had a lot of creative freedom.”
Chandonnet’s peers heaped praise on his self-starter attitude and his dedication to the magazine.
“This wouldn’t have happened without Henry, and I hope people carry on his legacy,” Vandis said. “I hope it inspires other people to do new and creative things and take initiative.”
Wells agreed. “I’m just proud of how he built this new publication from scratch. It’s no easy feat,” she said. “I think it’s intimidating at a campus like Tufts, where there are already quite a few student publications, to start something new. But regardless, he went for it and I think a plurality of voices should always be celebrated.”
In a world of short-form social media content and breaking news stories, Chandonnet hopes the magazine can offer slower, more drawn-out stories.
“I love big stories about really ancillary things, and that’s [something] that the Daily really doesn’t get to do,” he said. “I hope that other people have as much fun with it as I am.”
