When Alex Hyatt began at The Barometer, the first thing he did was stumble into a phone interview with Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.

“I was just emailing his assistant, and when he called me, he said, ‘Hey, I’ll put you on with Senator Wyden now,’” Hyatt said.

A few terms later, Hyatt is preparing to step into the role of Editor-in-Chief on June 16.

Being adept at any situation is something that Hyatt has a lot of experience with. After he was surprised by a phone call with a Senator for his first article on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expansions, he has had to adapt and reroute many times. 

As someone interested in political reporting, Hyatt was involved with reporting on student government elections this spring. 

“Covering (Associated Students of Oregon State University) this year has been a lot of quick turnaround and required working with several writers at once,” Hyatt said. “With the ‘ASOSU: What’s Next’ story, we worked on it for four hours the day before print was due — it took a lot of research to understand everyone’s perspective and it ran the very next day.”

Hyatt is a creative writing major minoring in political science who is set to graduate at the end of this summer. He applied to the Barometer years back and had since regretted not taking the position, not returning for two more years.

“I had been thinking about it for years since I got here, and over the (2024) summer, I had been doing a lot of writing for myself and wanted to put it into more professional practice,” Hyatt said. 

Hyatt began at OSU as a history major, but decided to switch to creative writing to have more creative liberty with his stories. 

“I just didn’t get to explore what I wanted, and I have always loved telling stories,” Hyatt said. “Doing journalism was something I had been talking about with my family for several years.” 

Hyatt was also interested in the community connections that typically come out of working in a newsroom setting. 

“The idea of working with people and getting to know things around campus and the city and interacting with the public was appealing,” Hyatt said.

Before coming to OSU, Hyatt studied English literature at Portland Community College after graduating high school in 2021. 

“I really liked the essays we wrote and the writing department I was in, it was the only class that was in person once a week,” Hyatt said.

When the COVID year ended, he transferred to OSU to get more involved in campus life.

After reporting through this past year, Hyatt said he didn’t plan on applying for a higher position.

“Initially, I had no intention of doing that, and then two of the previous editors reached out and said I should at least try,” Hyatt said. “I thought I might as well try something a little different if I was going to be here for the summer anyway.”

Hyatt is really interested in keeping print news alive. He said he appreciates how representative of the whole team a print issue is and how much The Barometer can showcase what the campus is doing through news on the stands.

“I am really excited to help lead the team in the summer — seeing the writers improve and grow seems exciting,” Hyatt said. “I am curious to see how I can work with people and keep the news alive through a relatively quiet summer.”

Hyatt is also really interested in working to increase the viewership of the paper through the summer by reporting on pressing subjects like student government, enrollment numbers, construction projects and other news events. 

Hyatt will step into the role of Summer Editor-in-Chief on June 16 and will remain in the position through the beginning of September.