Discussion has started about hiring next year’s editor, I’m already
planning travel for an annual newspaper conference, I’m nervous about
not
hearing back from some of my top choices for a summer internship, and
I’m
starting to feel some moments of impatience with college, this
university,
Eugene, colege students in general, and my life after spending 5 1/2
years
working toward graduation.
But it’s not over; I’m not done — I’m actually only half done. The
Friday, Jan. 24 edition of the Emerald, Issue 84, was my halfway mark
as
editor. And I can look back fondly on the summer (oh what a joy; only
eight
staff members, lots of free time and features like staff reviews of
malt
liquor beverages) and the excitement of getting ready for fall term.
Fall term itself was a blur, but the things I was looking for in my
staff and in the paper seemed to gel. Routines were set in place,
protocols
were established (if rarely followed, damnit) and a general tenor of
news
coverage emerged from the mixing of 50 students’ take on journalism.
And after winter break (which involved a maximum amount of drooling
on
the couch and a minimum of thought), I felt like I was in a rut — and
not
a good rut like I talked about last week, but a rut of “I’ll keep doing
this job the same way with the same priorities and the same modes of
interaction, and eventually the year will be over and I’ll be done as
editor.”
So I’m trying to mix things up in the newsroom, because I’m not done
being editor yet. I still have things to teach, I still have things to
prove (OK, maybe not so much), I still have things to experiment with,
and
the Tao knows I still have much left to learn.
Luckily, my ego (which could fall into a trap of feeling
self-satisfied
because I’m editor) is kept in check by the ever-changing news. Just
when I
think I don’t have much left to learn about how to do this job, a
different
news story comes along that makes me ask all the important questions
again:
Why are we covering this? Why is it important for readers to know? How
can
we tell it fairly? What facts should we include and which should we
leave
out? Who has an insight on this issue that we haven’t thought of? How
can
we tell this story a bit differently, a bit more excitingly?
These questions are the standards for journalism classes; they’re
mantras that seem like academic exercises until you realize you’re
going to
print something that could hurt someone’s career, or that could be
untrue,
or that doesn’t seem like the whole story — and then, you need to stop
and
bring up these questions as a long (if quickly spoken) conversation
about
what we need to do to be able to break this story.
It’s in those moments that I’m proudest of my staff and the news
judgment they bring to the conversation, and it’s those conversations
that
make me realize I’m not at all bored or impatient or ready for it be
over.
Actually, if senior citizens are right and the best part of life is
the
second half, then I’m just getting ready to rumble. Because I’m only
halfway done as editor.