If you’ve ever stepped foot into a Bishop’s bathroom, you’ve almost certainly noticed the crinkled white papers taped onto the restroom walls, stall doors, and sink mirrors. These papers could be filled with articles about a variety of topics, from a light-hearted to-do list, to an opinion about a nationwide issue, to even a guest article on the current controversial topic of conversation around campus. And of course, each issue is never complete without the iconic lyric quizzes found in the sidebar on the left.

As you’ve probably guessed, the only publication that fits all these characteristics is the Daily Urinal (most commonly referred to as the DU).With over 700 subscribers, this year’s senior editors, Macy Haro, Annalise Chang, Lisbon Zeigler, and Eliana Birnbaum-Nahl, have had a successful first couple of weeks running this publication, and they have many ideas on what they hope to achieve for the Daily Urinal. 

Eliana explained,  “I want the DU to be a space for all student voices. I want anything that is happening on campus…any way that students are feeling to be able to be expressed in the DU.” Similarly, Annalise said, “we want to provide a platform [for students]. That’s the goal of the DU.”

All the editors echoed Annalise’s opinion on the importance of creating an unfiltered platform for students. “The DU is the only publication that is not an official club on campus, meaning it exists to project and protect student voices,” said Macy. Eliana added,  “I think it really comes down to making everyone’s voice feel like important.”

More generally, Lisbon explained that it’s a “less filtered platform for discussion and expressing opinions.” In other words, it invites students to share their diverse opinions in a low stress, out of the classroom environment.

  Though there are many guest submissions, the majority of articles are written by editors, which means they have processes for writing their own pieces. Lisbon explained, “I talk about ideas to fellow editors or to my peers, I start researching if I need to, I write the intro usually, then sleep on it. Then, I write the body, sleep again, and finally I edit the entire article and send it to Ms. Allen and my fellow editors to check” (Amy Allen is a Bishop’s English teacher and the DU’s faculty advisor).  After the article is written, she continued, “I fill out the sidebar, format it into Word, and check it one last time. Then, I submit it to MailChimp, design the logo and phrase of the day, and schedule a send.” MailChimp is a third party mailing app through which people can subscribe to the DU—it is also used to send out the email form of articles.

Because the Daily Urinal publishes daily, the editors write articles in a very short time frame—though this doesn’t seem to phase any of them. “The process of constantly generating ideas makes it so that when you sit down and actually have to write an article, you’ve probably had an idea that day because you’re so used to thinking of them,” said Eliana. Annalise explained, “I think we just draw inspiration from what’s happening [around us].”

Still, writing in such a quick time frame does not come without its challenges. It can be quite stress-inducing, especially if the editors are stuck on coming up with ideas. Macy said, “It’s really easy to make mistakes because you’re moving so fast.” She added, “It’s definitely nerve-wracking. A lot of the time, I will have a back up article to use in case I don’t write a more relevant article quick enough to meet the deadline.”

All the editors spoke about having a list of article ideas to help inspire them. Eliana even shared some of these ideas, quickly finding the list on her notes app. She shared titles like “Pepto Bismol Soap” and “The Guild of Seagulls.”

Though a large portion of the DU is humorous titles and comical articles, this light-heartedness also stems into something meaningful. “I want it to be a space for really weird and esoteric and surreal articles, things that like would not fit in other places,” Eliana explained. She added, it’s for “people who are naturally kind of wordy,” because it allows them to realize that “it’s okay to have a crazy head.” As a result of this, Eliana loves how the DU has transformed into something “very queer and actually [very] female.”

Whatever your opinion is, the articles published in the Daily Urinal are most definitely about topics that will spark discussion, and they provide a starting point for all sorts of interesting conversations. 

Macy, Lisbon, Eliana, and Annalise will continue to write articles that spark interesting conversations all year. If you’re looking for a fun and engaging way to start your mornings, make sure to email @[email protected] to subscribe to the DU!