"You make the thing because you love the thing\nand you love the thing because someone else loved it\nenough to make you love it.\nAnd with that your heart like a tent peg pounded\ntoward the earth's core.\nAnd with that your heart on a beam burns\nthrough the ionosphere.\nAnd with that you go to work."
My English teacher read "An Horatian Notion" by Thomas Lux aloud to my class on the first day of my senior year of high school. Honestly, at the time I paid little attention to what my teacher was saying. But the poem's last four sentences stuck with me, though it seemed they had a meaning I did not then understand.
After spending the better part of four years working for The Cavalier Daily, I think I now know what Lux - and by extension, my teacher - was talking about.
The Cavalier Daily has a simple mission: report the news and advance the conversation on topics affecting the University community. A lot has to happen every day in pursuit of this mission, though. Content ideas must be assigned, written or created, and then edited. Advertisements need to be booked and placed, and pages must be designed.
As if that were not enough, the paper is entirely run by students. Though other organizations make a big deal about student self-governance, The Cavalier Daily is one of the few organizations which has no direct link to administrators and faculty whatsoever. This raises the stakes even higher. After all, staff members not only have to worry about finishing each issue before the 1:15 a.m. press deadline, but they also have to deal with homework, exams and the other challenges associated with being a student.To top it all off, the community has the power to critique the entire production process. If someone disagrees with a lead editorial or believes an article was biased, he has multiple ways to convey that opinion to the newspaper's staff.
The Cavalier Daily clearly has a lot of characteristics which ward off potential members. Why then do more than 150 people contribute to the paper on an annual basis, almost all of them for free?
I cannot speak for others, but I suspect part of the answer is the experience. As I became more involved with the paper and took on more responsibilities, my colleagues welcomed me with open arms and helped keep me sane. At the same time, they pushed me to make the most of the opportunity because they knew I could. As Lux might put it, they made me love The Cavalier Daily because they loved The Cavalier Daily enough to make me love it.
But what about the feedback from staff members and people in the community? I found almost all of it benefitted me in some way. I made plenty of mistakes in my time at the paper, but when I made them I knew someone would call me out and allow me to learn from them in time for the next day of production. Even when I disagreed with a piece of constructive criticism I took comfort knowing I stood by my decisions after someone challenged my thinking.
As I leave the paper and look toward life after graduation, newspapers around the world are struggling to remain viable and relevant in a changing media environment. The Cavalier Daily is no exception, as staff members have already made tough decisions about the paper's operations and will likely have to make more tough calls in the future.
Nevertheless, I know The Cavalier Daily will survive, as challenging circumstances always bring out the best in us. I know this from experience, because I saw this phenomenon time and time again during the past four years.
In addition, we forget sometimes that the University needs The Cavalier Daily. It is not just because the paper provides a learning experience unlike any other student organization, either. Rather, the paper benefits the entire community. No other publication covers the topics included in The Cavalier Daily. No other publication is a forum for discussion on University topics. Even feedback from readers benefits everyone, since in most cases it helps staff members improve their coverage of the community.
Ombudsman Tim Thornton said it best when he noted, "These are interesting times indeed," both for The Cavalier Daily and print media, in general. But if future staff members and future community members come to love the paper because current and past staff members love the paper, I am confident The Cavalier Daily will be around for at least another 122 years.
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