Staff Profile: Co-Opinions Editor Laura Byko
June 29, 2016
Senior journalism major and co-opinions editor Laura Byko is in her 4th semester at The Globe.
Photo by Liz Berie
– Why did you join The Globe?
The Editor-Elect at the time (this was way back in 2013) reached out to me and asked me to join his staff after a professor recommended me to him. That’s why I joined. I stayed because we get free pizza every Monday and also, less significantly, because I met people who would become some of my closest friends.
– How did you hear about The Globe?
I saw it in Starbucks on one of my first days on campus and started to read it. Then my coffee was ready so I stopped reading it.
– What do you like the most about a college newspaper’s opinions section?
I like that I’ve gotten the chance to hone my voice and be absolutely furious about political issues without subjecting my Facebook friends to my thoughts. Additionally, I like that I have the option to be unapologetically weird sometimes. I wrote a narrative about a Rat King and published it in The Globe, which probably would not have happened in a non-college newspaper.
– If you could write for any other section, which one would you write for and why?
I would write for sports, just to surprise people. I have layers!
– In three words, downtown Pittsburgh is…
Closed at 5.
– If you could have dinner with two people, one alive and one dead, neither of which are American, who would they be and why?
Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson. I imagine there’s probably some stuff Liam, at the very least, has rehearsed over and over and over in his head to say to her if he had the chance. I don’t know Natasha’s post-death situation, but she possibly also needs some closure. I would try not to speak much during the dinner, and just let them have their final moments. Then, when it was over and they were both weeping, but also feeling lighter than they had in years, Natasha would disappear. Liam would hang his head in unspeakable grief and I would take his hand, gently. We would walk off together, holding hands not in a romantic way, just friends who have experienced something profound and otherworldly and deeply human – people bound by a shared experience both terrible and beautiful, with the capability to both destroy and rebuild a life.
