This is an excerpt from a rough draft of a column I'll likely write for the Daily Wildcat in March, encouraging students to participate in ASUA elections and vote for a refundable $3 fee for Arizona Student Media. It's a rough draft because it's also just a love letter to the only lasting relationship I've ever maintained in college. (Let's not talk about what that says about my people skills.)
The Arizona Daily Wildcat is not "The Newsroom," by any means.
After all, HBO's "The Newsroom" does not feature a bunch of sleep-deprived college students whose conversations are crawling with incredibly pretentious, recycled-from-the-West-Wing Sorkin-isms.
There was an overly scripted reality TV show on MTV four or five years ago about a high school newspaper that featured a lot of tears, which was a little bit closer to what the Daily Wildcat is.
But neither is really right. Maybe it's more like "Parks and Recreation." I am, after all, always trying to channel Leslie Knope, though I think I more often feel like Ron Swanson.
I've been at the Daily Wildcat since the summer after my freshman year, and every semester I forget a little more about how to sleep and when to eat. Seriously. You know you're a college journo when it's 11 p.m. and your news editor asks if you've eaten dinner yet. (You also know there's something wrong with you if the answer is no, you haven't yet.)
And yet, I don't know if anything is more fulfilling than being a part of something like Arizona Student Media.
Maybe I'm confusing the caffeine-induced spike in my heart rate with real feelings, but I'm blown away every day by the people I've met and the stories they've produced. You meet a lot of people in college. But the people you meet in college media are rock stars.
If you haven't read the feature on a familiar face at every Arizona men's basketball game, prepare to have your heart squeezed. (Hat tip to our classmate, Megan, for finding and writing the story.) And if you're not keeping up with the lawsuit filed against the Arizona Board of Regents — the regents who set your tuition every year — then you are missing on some serious Arizona student government politics.
Admittedly, my GPA has taken a hit. My day-to-day goals are usually just remembering to eat and breathe. But it's a small sacrifice to make for the 100 or so employees of the Daily Wildcat, and the 300 total employees within Arizona Student Media.
I'm majoring in journalism despite every outside perspective that declares journalism is dead because how could it possibly be dead when I know so many people who just care so hard?
Kristina, I love the sound of your voice; simple, concise, full of emotion and experience. I get excited when I see your name on top of or underneath a piece of writing. Admittedly, my heart palpitates with the irregularity of long can't wait to read beats and short, deep, jealous bumps.
ReplyDeleteI started in the school of journalism at UA and hated a lot of it. It wasn't the long hours or even the fourteen edits I had to do before having copy short and concise enough to print (let's acknowledge it: I'm a windbag speaking, writing and so on.) Mostly, for me, it was the people within the school that made a lot of important decisions about student work that led me away from the J-school. In my opinion, they didn't have the skills in practice that they preached in the classroom. I have lists of examples (yes, actual lists...)but that's not the point really.
I, like you, believe the art of journalism has a future. That belief is furthered, made more real you might say, in knowing that people like you--assuming, of course that you're not the only one--are the voices behind that future. Thanks for the commitment, and the writing.
Good Post! I loved hearing your voice in this, it made me want to go out and become more informed about our school!
ReplyDeleteHat tip to you Kristina, for being a rock star EIC :). I love hearing our staff talk about the love they have for the Wildcat. I remember applying because it looked like something cool, not knowing much of what it would be about, and now a semester and a half later I'm attached. There wouldn't be so many sleepless nights if we didn't care the way we do. I try to explain it to people but I'm never able to do it as well as you just did.
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