IN MY FIRST semester as editor-in-chief, I remarked on more than one occasion that I felt as if someone was driving a metaphorical Mack truck over my life, putting the truck in reverse and then running over me again. I might have been the only one to express it in just so many words, but I speak for anyone who has every worked for The Cavalier Daily when I say that putting out a newspaper five days a week can be physically, mentally and emotionally taxing. There’s no one patting you on the back at the end of the day and, especially as a member of the Managing Board, you’re acutely aware of the fact that, should you screw up, there’s a very real chance that you could take down the CD.
So why do it? Why would anybody put in so much time and energy for little or no personal gain? Why worry about news articles that, supposedly, no one reads anyway? Why kill yourself for the dying field of print journalism? Why take the risk?
You can’t understand it unless you’ve been a part of it, but the best explanation I can give is that the CD has taught me more about myself in three and a half years than I ever could have imagined. And at all times, the paper took a much bigger gamble on me than I did on the CD, always with the expectation that I’d measure up.
Without backing myself into the corner of writing, editing or publishing post-graduation, I have had the opportunity to learn that words don’t motivate me enough to make them my life. Without being in the Comm School, I have learned that I would have made a fair accountant, but I also learned that I enjoyed running a business more than keeping its books in order. And this year I had the chance to make the entire operation my pet project for a year, fiddling with little details within the system to make our process and our product better, inch by inch and day by day. And I did all of this without an “adult” helping me figure it out or telling me when I was on the wrong track.
The Cavalier Daily is the University’s journalism school. It’s also the best place I know of to try your hand at design, photography, basic accounting and management. My experience at the paper has been so rich because I have had the chance to pursue things I loved without a syllabus; the skills I have picked up I gained of my own volition. At the CD, you’re in charge of your own destiny in the sense that tomorrow’s paper will be whatever you put into it, and after four years working there, you get out of it whatever you had to give.
Working at the CD has been a test for my patience, my endurance, my belief in my ability to manage people and my faith. It has unquestionably been one of the greatest opportunities I have ever had to minister to others and to love others intentionally. How all this gets wrapped up in the production of a college newspaper, I have no clue. But that’s why I’ve loved it.
I have had no higher privilege over the past two years than working with the nine exceptional individuals who alone of everyone I know actually understand why I did what I did. Herb, Dan, Caroline, Meggie, Daniel, Kristin, Koa, Steve and Andrew have always been there for me, whether I was pulling my hair out over books that didn’t balance, a comics catastrophe or the ridiculousness of my everyday life. I couldn’t have asked for nine more supportive friends, and I’m thankful to have them to help get me through adjusting to being a has-been and everything that comes next.
I would be much remiss if I didn’t thank three groups of people who have unquestionably gotten me through the past three and a half years. I cannot imagine my Cav Daily life without the support of people from Pi Phi, RUF and the SWANMOLD who woke me up in the morning so I wouldn’t fail my classes, listened to me talk through whatever was driving me crazy and prayed for me when I needed it most. How blessed I am to have friends who have gone beyond tolerating the craziness of my life and have loved me because of it.
Finally, to Laura Stocke and Ruth Ann Graham: The two of you might as well have been on my MBs because you come the absolute closest to understanding the why and how of my Cav Daily life. Thank you for having faith that, at the end of the day, I’m still EAM whether or not the paper is driving me nuts, and thank you for rejoicing with me on the good days even though you didn’t totally get it.
On the days with crazy classifieds people, staplers in jello, rolling at 4:15 a.m., Opinion divas, printer jams, AGs, administrative bureaucracy, muzzle awards and way too much self-doubt, I wondered whether I would regret doing it in the end. Not a chance.
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