Despite little training and no university journalism program, the staff of The Michigan Daily has embraced its vital role. Last year, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, it published a lengthy investigation that detailed sexual misconduct allegations against a professor, leading to his early retirement. In 2014, the paper published a major scoop about a sexual assault that the university concealed to protect a football player.

And on the first day of classes this semester, The Daily reported that the university had quietly stopped offering free testing for sexually transmitted diseases, prompting protests that forced the school’s administration to reinstate the program.

The Daily also covers issues that matter to Ann Arbor’s 121,000 residents, such as the inner workings of the municipal government, cuts to the county’s mental health budget, and a police oversight commission that was created last year in response to the shooting death of a black woman and the violent arrest of a black teenager.

“We’ve been given this mantle of holding the powerful accountable, five nights a week, with no department backing us up,” said Finntan Storer, 21, the managing editor of The Daily. “It’s a huge responsibility.”

In a sign of how seriously The Daily takes its responsibility to fully cover the city, Maya Goldman, 21, was elected editor in chief only after she was able to name the 11 members of the City Council, along with their wards and party affiliations.

Ann Arbor became the first city of any size to lose its only daily newspaper when The Ann Arbor News ceased daily print publication after 174 years and many rounds of staff cuts. The Ann Arbor Chronicle, an online news publication that focused on city government, folded in 2014 after six years.