Editor's Note: With the school year beginning, the expanded editorial board convenes its first September table. Three staff writers step up to lead new desks — Peter Lee (Health), Isaac Kim (Education), and Ejin Chung (Science & Technology) — and the politics desk welcomes its first new writer of the post-founder era, Doyeon Kim. Per house rules, everyone makes predictions December will be allowed to grade. Lightly edited for length and clarity.
Ethan Yang
Fourth year of The Argosy. First September of the new table. And the biggest masthead this paper has ever run — nine of us now, which means the group chat has achieved what our founders would call critical mass and what I call a moderation problem.
Formalities first, joyfully. Peter, Isaac, and Ejin have been writing for us since last year; as of this term they run their own desks — Health, Education, and Science & Technology. And Doyeon joins as our new politics writer, first of the post-founder era.
House rule for this meeting, inherited and non-negotiable: declare your beat's big question for the year, publicly, so December can embarrass you. Veterans first. Gawon.
Gawon Ryu
My year in one word: verdicts. Australia's under-16 ban turns one in December — the first real data from the biggest experiment ever run on teenage attention. The AI-companion reckoning is visibly next in the legislatures. And the youth mental-health numbers will start telling us whether any needle moved.
My beat spent years in the argument phase. This is the year evidence starts arriving. My standing commitment: I report the results even if they dismantle my priors. (Especially if.)
David Lee
Sustainability desk, three watch items, ranked by honest excitement.
Three: fusion's switch-on campaign — the magnets go operational next year, and the "thirty years away forever" joke faces its exam. Two: whether the grid survives its strangest year — AI demand still exploding, an oil shock still rippling out of the Gulf, the first full year of American climate law without its keystone.
One, and I'm not being cute: air conditioners. The efficiency standards moving through a dozen governments after this record summer might be the biggest emissions win of the decade. If nothing happens and I hyped ceiling appliances, December can have me.
Patrick Kim
Culture desk. My year is one question in many costumes: who owns the machine-made? The AI copyright wars went from skirmish to global litigation in ten months, and the deals being signed this fall will set the terms for a generation.
Also the most delayed video game in history allegedly, finally, actually arrives in November. Which will either be the biggest entertainment launch ever recorded or my funniest December confession. I have pre-drafted both columns. That's called preparation.
Olivia Kim
Science and health writer, sobering slot, as usual. My year-question: does the United States keep its measles elimination status? The arithmetic I wrote about in July is pointing the wrong way — and the decision is being made right now, this month, in school-entry forms in every district in the country.
Hopeful side of my ledger: the gene-therapy pipeline moving from miracle stories to approval calendars. Biology grades harshly. I'll be in the front row with the rubric.
Ethan Yang
And now the new desks. Peter — Health Editor. You've been our quietest byline for a year. Not anymore. What's your year?
Peter Lee
Happy to be loud on schedule. My question: does the pill era actually reach people? We now have obesity medicine at drugstore prices, Medicare coverage starting, government price deals — the whole access architecture I've been writing about since last fall.
On paper, the barriers fell. My year is checking whether they fell in practice — who actually gets the prescription, who's still outside the pharmacy looking in. Access is my desk's whole thesis: a cure that doesn't reach people is a press release.
Isaac Kim
Education desk, and my year-question writes itself: the first full admissions cycle of the testing restoration. The retreat from test-optional is complete at most selective schools now, and a generation that planned around one set of rules is applying under another.
Second watch item: every school on Earth is writing its AI-homework policy this fall, mostly in a panic, mostly copying each other. Somebody should read them all side by side. Unfortunately for my sleep schedule, that somebody is me.
Ejin Chung
Science & Technology desk, thrilled to exist officially. My year: the season the lab bets pay out or don't. AI-designed drugs are in human trials. The quantum computing world is still spending its Nobel glow. A rocket company had the largest IPO in history and then the most interesting six weeks of any stock alive.
My desk's rule, posted in advance: I cover results, not demos. If it only works in the keynote, it goes in the December confessions.
Doyeon Kim
And the rookie goes last, which is correct. I inherited a desk with an intimidating archive — I've read all of it, including the farewell column where my predecessor said the desk belongs to whoever keeps listening.
So, listening: my year is the midterms. November 3rd. First national verdict on this era, Senate maps, all of it — and I'm making zero predictions about results, because I read what December does to people at this table.
My actual question is a listener's question: whether the youth-revolt energy this paper has tracked from Kathmandu to New York shows up in an American midterm, or stays outside the ballot box. Ask me in December.
Ethan Yang
Zero predictions in a predictions meeting. The politics desk learns fast.
Chair's turn, briefly. My question for the year is the one every desk at this table now shares without saying it: does the center hold? Grids, schedules, treaties, school calendars, immune thresholds, attention spans — systems built for a stable world, stress-tested by one that stopped being stable. Some are adapting brilliantly. Some are visibly failing. Year four's job is telling readers which is which, honestly, desk by desk.
Housekeeping: the founders' traditions all survive. December confessions. The debate format. The reader question at the end.
Patrick Kim
Speaking of the founders — status report? The alumni group chat remains extremely active. Minwoo has sent three articles about campus election coverage captioned "your move." Saerom mailed the office a jar of pepper paste with unpacking instructions.
Gawon Ryu
And they read everything within hours. It's the most benevolent surveillance state in journalism.
Doyeon Kim
Confirmed. I posted my first draft link and got four comments before my roommate finished brushing her teeth.
Ethan Yang
As designed. Final thoughts, all nine — one sentence, and per the oldest house rule: no speeches, just the true thing.
Closing statements
Gawon Ryu
The argument years are ending and the evidence years are beginning — on my beat and, I suspect, on everyone's; may we all get caught being honest.
David Lee
The transition doesn't need cheerleaders or doomsayers this year. It needs scorekeepers. This desk keeps score.
Patrick Kim
Culture's question used to be "what does it mean"; this year it's "who owns it" — and I intend to follow the receipts.
Olivia Kim
The thresholds don't negotiate — measles, sleep, heat, all of it — so this column will keep publishing the thresholds until the world stops testing them.
Peter Lee
Medicine's breakthroughs are upstream; my desk lives downstream, where people either get them or don't — and downstream is where the year will be decided.
Isaac Kim
Every education system on Earth is rewriting its rules at once, and somebody should file the comparison — neatly, with citations.
Ejin Chung
Results, not demos. Ask me in December which was which.
Doyeon Kim
I inherited a desk that listens; this year I find out what American voters say when someone actually does.
Ethan Yang
Seven founders proved that deciding to take the world seriously is the whole secret; the nine of us just have to keep deciding it, weekly, in public, starting now.
New year, new table, same ship. What should The Argosy be watching this year? The comments are open — and to the founding seven, reading this from five campuses: your move.
