After writing a New York Times bestseller about teenagers' social lives and pursuing freelance work for a wide range of major news sources, Abigail Jones '03 helped launch The Daily, the first iPad-only news application. Jones began working for The Daily, which first published on Feb. 2, last fall and now serves as the app's web editor and social media manager.
The Daily provides more interactive content than a conventional news source, Jones said. In addition to supplying articles that focus on breaking news, celebrity gossip and sports, The Daily allows subscribers to access 360-degree photos and embedded videos. The app also allows users to share articles, leave audio comments and take advantage of other social networking site features, according to Jones.
"It's a new news experience that you can't get anywhere else right now," Jones said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
At The Daily, Jones works to establish an online voice for the publication through the news source's Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages and Tumblr blog, she said.
Her goal is to create a community of both subscribers and non-subscribers that is centered around The Daily and that can provide feedback on this new form of journalism, she said. The Internet community's response has been positive so far, and The Daily's Twitter account already has over 20,000 followers, Jones said.
Jones said that from an early age, there was little question about what kind of job she would pursue upon graduation. Writing and journalism have always been her major passions, she said.
"I grew up in a family of historians and writers, and a house filled with books," she said. "Writing was always the given it was more of a question of what am I going to be writing and who am I writing for."
Classes and experiences at the College greatly impacted Jones' career as a writer, she said. In addition to writing for The Dartmouth and working as a writing tutor for freshmen, Jones focused her academic efforts on history courses.
Dartmouth professors allowed her to stray from the traditional critical essay, allowing her to explore ways to creatively collect information, Jones said. She recalled submitting a paper on the portrayal of the American working class after writing and compiling various short stories.
"I was always interested in coming at stories, looking at history, understanding people, events and moments in a slightly different way," she said. "[My professors] let me go off in an unexpected direction in a lot of the papers I wrote for them, and they encouraged me to find my voice as a writer."
After graduating from the College in 2003, Jones received a Masters in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Jones moved to Boston in 2004 to work as an intern and then a staff editor for The Atlantic, when a sex scandal at Milton Academy a prep school near Boston inspired her book, "Restless Virgins: Love, Sex and Survival in a New England Prep School," which she worked on until 2007 with Marissa Miley, the book's coauthor.
Jones then received a Master of Arts degree in arts and culture journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism before beginning work on The Daily in 2010.
Despite her past writing and journalism experience, Jones said that working for The Daily brings its own set of challenges.
"I'm starting from scratch along with the rest of The Daily team to a certain extent," she said.
