The Michigan Daily recently elected a new class of editors to manage the newspaper during the 2012 calendar year.

Every year, staff-wide elections are held to determine who will inherit the positions of editor in chief and editorial page editor. Sections such as news, arts, sports and photo elect their own editors while other positions — such as the managing editor and online editor — are appointed by the paper’s management desk, a group of about 30 editors.

This year, the Daily staff held an election that lasted until 6 a.m. to elect the paper’s new editor in chief, Public Policy junior Joseph Lichterman. Lichterman, who has been working at the Daily since his freshman year, said he is overjoyed to start his new job and will ensure that the newspaper is held to the best journalistic standards.

“As students at the University of Michigan, we have a unique perspective on what’s going on on-campus or (with) the athletic teams or the art scene,” he said. “And I really want to provide the campus community and Ann Arbor our unique perspective, and our authoritative coverage and really emphasize that, but also continue to emphasize how we deliver our content to our readers.”

Lichterman said he plans to focus more on social media, something that LSA senior Stephanie Steinberg, the Daily’s current editor in chief, pushed for during her term.

“I want to take that to the next level and really encourage every staff member to get a Twitter account, build up an audience and really become a brand and make themselves an authority on their beat, whether it be reviewing movies or covering City Council,” Lichterman said.

Like Lichterman, Business School sophomore Ashley Griesshammer and LSA sophomore Andrew Weiner were also elected next year’s co-editorial page editors by the entire Daily staff. Griesshammer said she and Weiner plan to bring increased diversity to the editorial staff to represent more viewpoints and make the opinion page more vibrant.

“To start, we’re being a lot more selective with our columnists and trying to find a much more diverse group of people coming from different schools on campus, different backgrounds and people that are going to talk about different topics and not have everyone write about politics every week,” Griesshammer said.

LSA senior Josh Healy, who was appointed the 2012 managing editor and is the current copy chief, said increasing staff diversity is a top priority. He added that he looks forward to working with the new class of editors.

“We’ve got some extremely strong talent around the paper right now, so the possibilities in terms of content and the quality that we’re going to be able to produce is pretty outstanding,” Healy said.

Public Policy junior Bethany Biron, who is currently a senior news editor, was elected managing news editor for the upcoming year. Biron said one of her top priorities is to improve communication not only within the news section but between all the sections in order to foster collaborative work.

“I’m very excited,” Biron said. “I’ve been on the news staff since freshman year, and I’ve loved every moment of it, and I can’t wait to stick around next year and see how the news section progresses and what we can do to make it better.”

The same level of dedication toward the paper was expressed by LSA junior Leah Burgin, a current senior arts editor and the next managing arts editor.

“I’m excited, but it also feels really natural because I love the Daily, and this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while to give back to the institution,” Burgin said.

She added that she intends to revamp the arts section of the website to cater more toward readers and to focus on the arts section’s community culture beat. Like Biron, Burgin said she intends to work on improving communication between arts and the other sections of the Daily.

LSA junior Stephen Nesbitt will continue his current position as managing sports editor into the next term.