Katherine Ellis – Editor-in-Chief
It all began, as most things do in my life, with a well-intentioned mistake. The first few weeks of my freshman year I picked up The Daily Utah Chronicle every morning outside my dorm as I rushed out for class and read it on the shuttle, red pen in hand, looking for errors.
During the semester’s welcome week, I met representatives of the student-run radio and tried to ask about opportunities available at the newspaper. Instead, I found myself in training to be a radio DJ with a bunch of other freshmen. Before I knew it, there was a mike in front of me and an expectant DJ asking, “Well, what’s your DJ name? We’re making your promo right now.”
Wait! I wanted to shout, I don’t belong here, I don’t know anything about radio, I want to be a writer! But I was shy and timid and thought maybe the radio would be a good way for me to transition to the paper, so I sputtered a name on the spot and left the studio wondering what I had just done.
As fate would have it, the next day I picked up the Chronicle, outside the K-Ute studio no less, and saw an ad asking for potential copy editors to email the managing editor at the time, Lauren Cousin. A week later, I began working for the publication that would build the framework of my college career. My timid, blind, freshman fumbling had landed me exactly where I wanted to be. I haven’t stopped running since.
I worked on the copy desk for a year, editing the “golden” columns of Ryan McDonald and admiring the work of Arts Editor Billy Yang, doubling over laughing every time he and I bonded over our tales of being American-hypen-Asians. I spent the whole year complaining about headline length to legendary Production Manager Sanchez, only to learn his name was actually Tyler Schoenhals Pratt and to this day I still don’t understand where that nickname came from.
The next two years saw me as Opinion Editor and Arts Editor, where I had opportunities to interview artists like LIGHTS, attend concerts and gallery openings and build relationships across campus. Somewhere between my third year at the U and the one that’s ending now, I decided to apply for Editor-in-Chief.
During a time that can only be described as a metamorphosis of sorts, I took over the paper in a decidedly pupa state. I made the call to crack that chrysalis wide open, determined to show my staff the butterfly that lay inside, but was met with all sorts of challenges. Have you ever actually seen a butterfly come out of its cocoon?
It’s a goddamn bloody mess.
It’s the nostalgia of print colliding with the necessity of a digital space. It’s confusing deadlines and fluff content. It’s a semi-24 hour news cycle and a well-deserved drink on Friday. It’s emergency Pie delivery and obscenely late nights. It’s a wall plastered in quotes and the shock of realizing it’s all over and someone else will have to finish prodding the butterfly out of its cocoon.
It’s been an adventure, to say the least, and one that taught me more than any class ever could. Four years flew by, and I can’t express my gratitude enough to the incredible staff that helped me finish off this experience. While the legacy I leave will peg me as the first Editor-in-Chief to cut print in the 126-year history of The Daily Utah Chronicle, I don’t regret it for a moment because I had these people at my side.
I’ll miss snarky Ju and her ability to defuse any situation with a little bit of humor and a lot of Diet Coke. I’ll miss Courtney and her love of empty notebooks and look forward to reading what she writes for The New York Times someday. I’ll miss Mark, who’s the perfect height for a solid hug and the perfect person to continue carrying out the vision we imagined together in his first interview.
I’ll miss teasing Griffin about never being in the office, only because I wished he were around more. I’ll miss seeing Kim’s outfits every day and Kaitlin’s laugh and the way they both make everything around them so lovely. I’ll miss Justin’s misleading satirical pieces and Erin’s hilarious texts during forever long meetings. I’ll miss Jake’s enthusiasm and Josh’s doodles. I’ll miss Devin’s perfected “all-in-the-hips” golf swings, obsession with Shakira and getting him to crack up because making him laugh means you said something truly funny.
I’ll miss it all, challenges and victories alike. Despite these four years beginning with an error, however well-intentioned, it was by far the best mistake I ever made.
@katherinekellis
Emily Juchau – Managing Editor
Dear Reader, Dear You:
Sentimentality isn’t my style.
Considering that this job gave me a panic disorder, you’d think I’d have no problem walking away and never looking back. But I find myself sympathizing with Lot’s wife — that woman in the early pages of the Bible who, despite being commanded not to look back at her burning city, did anyway, and consequently transformed into a pillar of salt. I wonder if the salt thing was a metaphor. Maybe she just cried. A lot. Ha.
My city isn’t burning, and I’m under no orders but my own to avoid glancing over my shoulder, but I feel more like a salt statue every moment. Take that as you will.
I’ve worked at The Daily Utah Chronicle for three and a half years, first as a copy editor and then as managing editor. It feels like much longer — several lifetimes, maybe. It’s been beautiful. It’s been hard, and it’s been easy, by turns intuitive and impossible, rewarding and abusive. You hurl yourself into something, and you forget that the inevitable impact will hurt, that marathon runners always hit a wall, that the aftermath of birth sometimes leaves mothers depressed. Achievement is a disgusting concoction of blood and sweat — amen.
When I applied to be a copy editor, I figured my work description would be narrow — spelling and style, facts and commas. For a while, it was, but three years later it’s expanded to something more like parenthood. I still spend my days checking names and deleting Oxford commas, trying to convince sports writers that there is in fact a difference between “the Utes’ conference berth” and “the Utes’ conference birth,” but I also worry, constantly, widely, about the people I consider in some ways mine.
I worry that Katherine isn’t getting enough sleep. I worry that Courtney will never meet Kevin Bacon. I worry that Griffin doesn’t understand, despite hundreds of texted late-night reassurances, that I think he’s a fantastic writer. I worry about missing Cynthia’s dead-pan sarcasm, Kylee’s enthusiasm for “Hamilton” (you will always be the Hamilton to my Burr) and Kim’s live-recaps of “Law and Order: SVU” (ADA Barba 4 eva). I worry about how I’m possibly going to function without Kaitlin’s steadiness and brilliance (I’m not). I worry about the hole in my heart that will undoubtedly develop when I don’t have Devin to argue with, and I worry that Mark is going to actually go insane. I worry until worry has lost its meaning, until I can’t sleep, until I’m salt.
“Heaven is here,” Romeo says, speaking of the city from which he’s been banished, and I suppose, for the first time in my life, I agree with him. I couldn’t qualify the newsroom as any type of heaven — more like an occasionally entertaining hellscape — until my leaving it became unavoidable. And maybe the fact that I’m suddenly relating to Romeo — sappy, silly Romeo — ought to clue me in to the fact that I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now how to write this love letter.
Dear Reader, is how I think I should start. Dear You.
e.juchau@dailyutahchronicle
@EmilyJuchau
Kaitlin Baxter – Copy Chief
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the wise wizard Gandalf tells reluctant hobbit hero Frodo, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” My first year at the Chrony, I was elected the Frodo of our “Copy Desk Fellowship” and I, too, have needed to hear Gandalf’s sage advice many times over the past three years — but never more than now.
As graduation stares me in the face, it’s time for me to decide: what to do with the rest of my life, where to live once my lease is up, what to wear for graduation. You know, the big decisions. But before any of that happens, I have to decide how to say goodbye to the friends, memories and experiences I’ve had in three years at The Daily Utah Chronicle.
Should I be funny? Sentimental? Way too personal? Writing things like this always stresses me out because I want to get it just right. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned at the Chrony, it’s that no matter the story, there’s always something that can be changed. So I’m going to stop worrying, quit babbling and just start thanking people.
First, I have to look back at the people who helped me learn to love copy editing and working at the Chrony in my first year here. They’re the reason I’ve stayed here this long. Thanks to Niki Harris for hiring me, and to the rest of the Flaming Meerkats for fun adventures, from the newsroom to the Tetons.
This year I had the great pleasure of being the Chrony’s copy chief, which has meant both more responsibilities and more interaction with the rest of the newsroom. These next thanks aren’t going to be adequate to cover a year of hilarity, struggles and just plain ridiculousness, but here goes.
Big hug to Katherine, who has been a fab Editor-in-Chief as well as being an all-around fab human being. Never forget to be etiquette.
Huge thank yous to all of the desk editors and assistants for being (mostly) a joy to work with, both in terms of making a newspaper and in terms of talking about anything and everything while hanging out in the newsroom. Being on senior staff this year has been the best way to meet amazing people.
Shoutout to Mark for killing the rips with me last summer as we began the transition to our new look and format while the powers-that-be were gallivanting around Europe.
Kudos to the rest of the “prod. squad” for always making me laugh and designing beautiful things.
Much love to my copy editors this year: Kamryn, Katie, Alexandria, Alyssa, Greyson, and Madison. This was my first time being a boss to anyone, and you guys not only made my job so easy, but you made it fun. Thanks for writing headlines, checking sports stats and quietly making the Chrony an overall better product.
And last but never least, Emily — the Edward to my Alphonse, the chaotic good to my lawful good, my fellow introvert, Frodo-defender and Snape-hater. You know what you did.
As I leave behind the comfort and familiarity of being a student, I don’t know what awaits me, but I’ll always treasure the opportunities I had here at The Daily Utah Chronicle. To return to my favorite book/movie series: “The Road goes ever on and on” and I hope I’ll get to meet some of you again along the way.
Courtney Tanner – News Editor
Any journalist will tell you that the hardest part of any story to write is the ending.
Most of the time, we half-ass it. We end on a quote or throw in some meaningless sentence just so we don’t have to actually think about how to conclude. I’ve realized as my fours years at The Daily Utah Chronicle come to a close, I’m doing just that: avoiding the ending because it’s too damn hard.
I started reporting for the newspaper as a freshman, when I was a small and bumbling, nervous know-it-all who, as it turns out, didn’t know all that much. The only thing I remember from my first day at the office was seeing a bowling pin with Nicolas Cage’s face glued to the top of it. It was a weird first impression, yes, but magical. Even though, as you can imagine, that was pretty hard to beat, my experiences in the newsroom have only gone up from there.
Now I’m a foul-mouthed reporter who started this column by asking her managing editor which swear words are permissible to print (she graciously gave me free rein to the whole damn lot). I’ve learned everything I know about journalism here: how to craft a lede, how to ask tough questions, how to pitch an idea, how to tell meaningful stories and how to eat pizza with one hand while typing a police blotter with the other (though that seems of lesser importance now).
These four years have been more valuable than any lesson in a classroom could ever be. I’ve been able to mess up (a lot), try new things (a lot) and hate the Oxford comma (even more). When I look back on my college years, I’ll forget the stress of papers and exams — give it a couple years, those wounds are still pretty fresh — and remember my time at The Chronicle. I’ll think about the stories I wrote on ASUU, the dean of the Honors College, Medicaid expansion, same-sex marriage and students building an igloo to smoke pot in (yes, that last one really did happen).
Despite not being a sappy person, I suppose I’ll also look back on the truly brilliant (and undeniably zany) people I’ve been lucky enough to work with.
I’ll miss worrying about life with Katherine Ellis. I’ll miss Emily Juchau, whose love of Diet Coke and “Mad Max: Fury Road” is something to strive for. I’ll miss Cynthia Luu, who constantly makes me laugh and is the only one who understands that I’m actually an emotionless robot. I’ll miss hearing about Kim Brenneisen’s savvy shopping trips to Nordstrom Rack and Kylee Ehmann’s odd obsession with Antiques Roadshow.
I’ll miss being salty to my co-worker and soon-to-be-friend Griffin Adams (though we really are the same person) and arguing with Ryan Miller about sasquatches (rest assured, we both believe in the beautiful bipedal Big Foot). I’ll miss Devin Wakefield’s analogies and yelling at Mark Klekas from across the room. I’ll miss Taylor Stocking spontaneously serenading me.
I’ll also miss finding elaborate ways to work Kevin Bacon into every answer to a staff picks question. Obviously this is my most transferrable newsroom skill.
Thanks to the two greatest mentors, Matt Canham and Sheena McFarland, both of whose no-nonsense critiques on my work over the past few years undoubtedly made me into the journalist I am today. Thanks also to Emily Andrews, who taught me two important lessons: send the haters to the left and always say “yes” to Chinese food. Additionally, a hearty “thank you” goes out to all of the reporters and editors I’ve worked with over the years. I owe a whole lot to the whole lot of you.
Sorry if that list felt like an acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards. Because of my tone-deaf singing, it’s likely the only chance I’ll ever get to experience anything akin to that. I appreciate you, dear reader, for bearing through it.
All of this has been to say that The Chronicle, though challenging at times, will be a tough place to leave. It’s been a home for me; it’s where I learned to stand up for what I believe in, where I ate a diet consisting of 80 percent TUMS and 20 percent junk food and where I learned what “Hotline Bling” really means. I’ll miss this kick-ass place of phenomenal journalism.
I’m not one of those silly people who will tell you that every end is just a new beginning. That’s stupid. Endings are the hardest part because they mean the most. You can never adequately wrap up a 400-word story or four years of work in a single sentence. So, to help me finish things off in the best way I know, here’s a real motivational quote from my boy Ice Cube: “Chickity-check yo self before you wreck yo self.”
@CourtneyLTanner
Griffin Adams – Sports Editor
Three years ago, I hated Utah. Sure, the mountains were cool and I loved parts of campus, but being less than a year removed from packing all of my belongings and moving 2,000-plus miles from my childhood home, it would be fair to say I was a little homesick.
My friends and family were no longer just down the road, I COULD NOT figure out how to navigate through the complex grid that Utah calls a road system and wait, there’s no Sheetz or Wawa out here? What kind of sick place is this?
To say I wasn’t happy in the Beehive State is an understatement, and I decided I needed to get out.
I had a plan. I applied for the Travis Rigby Scholarship through The Daily Utah Chronicle, but I didn’t have high hopes of receiving it. If I didn’t, I would transfer schools back to the Philadelphia area, and in my mind, I was already halfway gone after I applied.
But to my surprise, I earned the scholarship, completely foiling my plan. “Well, I guess I’ll stay,” I told myself. But in my heart, I had no desire to.
I’m not exactly sure I remember the point when things turned around, but all I can say is I am SO happy I stayed here at the U. Even more so, I cannot begin to express my gratitude for this paper and Student Media as a whole.
Because of this paper, I’ve been able to travel to Los Angeles to cover the Utah football team play in the historic Rose Bowl. The following year, I bounced from Portland to Houston and then Denver to keep up with the success of the Utah men’s basketball team. I got to spend a couple days of the Christmas season in New York City (my dream) for Utah’s upset of Duke. And I even got to see the Grand Canyon on the way home from catching a Runnin’ Utes game in Tucson.
For a guy who hadn’t been anywhere but up and down the East Coast for most of his life, experiencing all of these places has been a dream, and I wouldn’t have been able to do so if not for The Daily Utah Chronicle.
While visiting all of these places has been great and all, none of these instances even hold a candle to the relationships and memories I built inside the newsroom. I’m not always around the office, and I’m probably one of the most difficult coworkers to work with, but the people I have worked with have become something more than that.
I’ve always had a rule that I’m not friends with my coworkers. It was more of a joke to piss off the people I work with than anything, but the thing none of them realize is that I wasn’t really kidding. They aren’t my friends — they are even more than that, as my second family.
To Katherine, who beat me out for Editor-in-Chief for this school year: Let’s just say they made the right decision. You have done an amazing job as EIC, and Wisconsin is lucky to gain someone who is as creative and artistic as you.
To Emily (Ju for short — you’re welcome for the nickname), thank you for putting up with all of my shortcomings. I have been nothing short of extremely annoying during our tenures, but I think deep down, you live for my mistakes. You’ll miss me.
To Kim, thank you for carrying the desk when I was unable to. I have been extremely busy this last school year between being sports editor, having internships and trying to graduate, and you have been there every step of the way to help pick up the slack. The desk is in good hands moving forward.
To former writers/editors Ryan McDonald and Ryan Miller, thank you for teaching me everything I know. You guys are both amazing journalists, and I aspire to be like both of you each and every day.
And last but not least, to Jake Bullinger, my first sports editor, who hired me on to The Daily Utah Chronicle staff. Thank you for giving me a chance when the only experience I had was a mediocre — at best — personal blog and for screaming at me in the newsroom to get my act together and be a real journalist.
There are so many more people I want to thank, but I’ve already doubled my word count. I hope I get to do so before my departure from Utah, but for now, I’ll just thank the Chrony and Student Media as a whole. I can’t imagine where I’d be today without each and every person I’ve worked with here at the U.
Thank you for the chance to do what I love and figure out what I want to do with my life. Now, on to the real world.
Holy shit — I’m still not ready.
@GriffDoug
Kylee Ehmann – Arts Editor
There’s a saying in my family that sums up my entire undergraduate career here at the U — “risk it for the biscuit.”
We first started using this phrase after we got lost on a road trip and weren’t sure which road to take to get to the camping ground. When my dad wondered out loud if we should turn down an upcoming street, my younger sister shouted this now-legendary phrase from the back seat. As it happened, we got very, very lost that day, but “risk it for the biscuit” lived. That idea of taking a small chance with an uncertain outcome, as goofy as it is, plays in the back of my mind all the time.
“Risk it for the biscuit” is why I minored in Arabic language, how I discovered that I look great in crop tops and, most importantly, it’s why I applied to be a news writer and then an arts editor at The Daily Utah Chronicle.
I had applied once before to the Chronicle as an opinion writer and was promptly rejected. When I saw the flyers advertising for another position, this time on the news desk, I was a little hesitant. I had, by this point, only taken around two classes focused on writing for newspapers. As I have absolutely no chill and have spent four years learning to construct arguments in both of my majors, I knew I could write opinion, but I had no idea about news.
But, as my family philosophy reminded me, the worst that could happen was that I either wouldn’t be accepted or that my trial period just wouldn’t work out and I’d go find another way to express myself through writing. So I risked it.
And it paid off big time. Not monetarily, of course — this is journalism, after all. But I have become an exponentially stronger writer and, after risking submitting an application for a second time, a pretty decent editor.
More important than the skills I’ve honed during my year and a half as a writer and my semester as an editor are the people at the paper I’ve come to count as my colleagues and friends.
I’ll take the time here to give a particularly special shout-out to my editors when I was over on the news desk, Courtney Tanner and Cynthia Luu. They spent hours correcting my subpar stories and took the time to help push me to become a better writer. I can honestly say I would not have stuck around on this job without their criticism and encouragement. Especially Courtney, who I now consider one of my best friends and without whom my life would be a little darker.
Another big thank you to the copy editors at the Chronicle, who spend hours fixing the mistakes of everyone in the office, especially Kaitlin Baxter and Emily Juchau, who not only were very forgiving of the arts desk’s perpetual inability to get anything in before the last minute, but are also two of the funniest people in the office and made coming into work actually something I wanted to do.
I’d also like to give a thank you to Katherine Ellis, our editor-in-chief, for keeping the Chronicle going, to Kim Brenneisen, next year’s sports editor, for being another gem of a colleague and all-around amazing human, and everyone else at the office who I just do not have room to name in this article.
Taking that small risk and applying was one of the best decisions that I ever made. If any future “risk it for the biscuit” decisions I make yield a work environment and colleagues half as great as the those I had here, I’ll count myself blessed.
@Ehamnnky
Jonathan Park – Opinion Editor
I walked into the Chronicle office a starry-eyed, clean-shaven boy with a pen, a pad and a plethora of opinions that I couldn’t wait to share with the world. After spending the past two years in the character-forging Chronicle pressure cooker, I am about to walk out of that esteemed office as a wizened, fuzzy-faced man, gratefully enlightened on the more important aspects of quasi-professional opinion writing.
I am possessed now of a healthy respect for word counts, publication schedules and punny headlines. I am viscerally repulsed by Oxford commas, un-cited factual claims and portrait cover photos. The time I’ve spent gestating in the warm womb of The Daily Utah Chronicle has enabled me to develop my writing to such a degree that I am not only confident enough to expose my opinions to strangers, entirely unsolicited, but I am also able to critique the content and delivery of other people’s opinions.
Dolling out my opinions to groups of randos — be it in restrooms, on public transit, at parties I wasn’t invited to, in classes I wasn’t enrolled in, during funerals of the grandparents of casual acquaintances, etc. — has always been a favorite pastime of mine. But until I became a writer for the Chronicle, I basically felt like Kanye West back when he was still working at the Gap: I simply wasn’t capable of communicating the genius of my convictions to a wide enough audience. I was painfully aware of society’s desperate need to know where I weighed in on such salient subjects as coconut oil, renewable energy, corporate greed, Donald Trump and, of course, marijuana legalization.
Sure, I used to camp out inside coffee shops and implore passersby to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I felt no shame in taking the opportunity presented by long, lunchtime lines at Cafe Rio to dazzle hungry, captive audience members with eloquent diatribes against processed foods. But it was The Daily Utah Chronicle that ultimately afforded me with my grandest and most rewarding soap box. Thus, as much as this article is aimed at bidding farewell to the most fantastic flock of females and fellows on campus, it is also an opportunity for you, the readers, to thank the Chronicle, for the opportunity it has afforded me to share my invaluable opinions with you. For, had it not been for the courage of a couple audacious editors, my illuminating convictions might still be contained solely to random public gatherings. Thankfully for us all, such was not the design of fate.
Instead, destiny took it upon herself to elevate me to the prestigious position of editor over the opinion desk — the most luxurious, important and intellectually taxing of all the desks by far. Consequently, I have been the recipient of honors and privileges that you wouldn’t imagine. Trojan once sent the Chronicle’s editorial staff a large box of vibrating condoms and a purple, Trojan gym-bag. Guess who’s now the coolest guy in the gym? That’s right — it’s me.
People always ask me, “Jonathan, what are you going to miss most about being opinion editor of the Chronicle?” My answer is always the same: “Free pens and printing services.”
Devin Wakefield – Page Designer
As a designer, you have to accept that more often than not, what you do is design the world’s most beautiful garbage. The nature of the work is fleeting. When I design a page I know it will exist in two places: on a hard drive somewhere in the belly of The Daily Utah Chronicle’s archives and on a few hundred pieces of paper to be stared at briefly before being discarded. It occurs to me how perfect a metaphor this is for those of us who work at the Chronicle. In an organization that’s been around for over a century, no one really makes a lasting impact. It isn’t as nihilist a thought as it may seem, but that doesn’t make it any less true. We work for a few years and are promptly replaced by another batch of wide-eyed new recruits hot off the train from elsewhere.
I’ve been here three years, and each year presents its own unique heartbreak. Each year a few of the people you’ve spent every spare moment with move on. It’s the natural cycle of things. Some you keep track of after they move on and some you don’t, but they all leave an impact. The best people I’ve ever known, I met during my time at the Chronicle and I’ve watched many of them walk out the door. Sometimes I pause to think about what my impact will be. How will the Chronicle change after I’ve left? I feel pretty confident in saying that there will be fewer puns. It’s probably also safe to assume that there will be less bitching and moaning about Daredevil’s mask and how hackish “Doctor Who” is — but I try to think past that. Ideally, I’ll mean something to others that is similar to what they meant to me.
As short as all of our time here may be, there’s something to the fleeting nature of the job. Beauty in brevity. When I walk out the side door of the Chronicle for the final time, I know it will make me sad, and I know there are people I care about who I’ll never see again. I also know it’ll bring closure. It will complete the cycle that started what seems like so many years ago when I walked in for the first time. I’ll walk out knowing that the mark I left on the Chrony is faint, but hoping the mark I left on my coworkers and friends is not. If I’m lucky, it will be half as strong as the mark made on me by the many people I’ve seen walk out that very same door.
Cynthia Luu – Assistant News Editor
Working at a student newspaper has taught me one thing: Vanilla Ice was right all along. The key to survival is to Stop. Collaborate. And listen.
Most people already have a good grasp on what journalism is. Besides the hefty paycheck, fast cars and scantily clad ex-Abercrombie models blowing up your phone at all hours of the day, it’s also a lot of calloused keyboard fingers, over-processed microwave dinners, long nights, really loud conversations in the newsroom, stress writing and slowly realizing disappointment isn’t something you feel once in a while but has become a dominant character trait.
Over the past year, The Daily Utah Chronicle has experienced the news outlet version of the world’s most uncomfortable quasi-puberty. If you didn’t know that our print product was cut down from daily to two days a week, then be happy to know you have one thing in common with 90 percent of the student population. The transition brought about plenty of awkward peaks, hormones run rampant and lots and lots of tears.
But this, like everything else force-fed to millennials, is a growing opportunity. This is where Vanilla Ice’s age old adage becomes relevant. First, there’s a “Stop,” a.k.a. a change. It’s standard in a newsroom (and in life) that everything changes. Nothing is static — people and places grow up and out, and there’s a lot of wasted energy trying to keep things stagnant. But change can be great — it’s just a matter of adopting and being open, especially when things don’t go your way.
This is where the second part comes in: “Collaborate.” Those bullshit group assignments that exist to prepare you for a lofty definition of teamwork have no dice on the collaboration that happens in a newsroom. No one person or desk can make a functional product. The Chrony is a ragtag group of half-adults doing (mostly) full-adult jobs. It’s progressive, exhausting and hilarious.
There are very few places on campus where the majority of students in positions of power are women. The Chrony is one of those places. Editorial boards are run by women —a constant buzz of high-functioning, inspirational and amazing women in one close cluster and a group of creatives have the opportunity to play and grow from each other (special shout-out to the managing editor, copy chief, the lovely ladies of copy and the arts, sports and news desks).
And OK, listen. Are you listening? Because that’s the majority of this life, and it’s both a forgotten good and a great evil. Listen while someone spouts off the next big step forward and then nothing gets done. Listen while someone who is 12,000 degrees removed from what’s going on tells you everything you’re doing is wrong. Listen as people’s egos continue to inflate. Listen as stories and ideas fall through and continue to listen because the majority of journalism is listening to peoples’ stories and the things going on in the world. Listening isn’t progress, but sometimes it’s the extent of our power.
My time at a student newspaper showed me what I did and did not want professionally. It gave real-world application to a lot of the inequalities I already knew and graced me with some of the most kick-ass women out there. But above all, it really put into perspective what Vanilla Ice was saying all along.
So are you ready, VIP? Let’s kick it.
@cynthia_luu