I’ve worked on EMU’s student newspaper throughout the course of my four year college career. I’ve been in most major seats on staff, working as a writer, page editor, and copy editor, and taking on two semesters as Managing Editor and serving as a Co-Editor in Chief for a semester, too.
It’s been great. While I can’t say that I’m all that interested in the more newsy side of journalism that the Weather Vane harbors, I’ve greatly enjoyed being a part of the production team, and having an outlet to voice my opinions and connect with a contemporary audience has been great.
When I took over as Co-Editor in Chief for a semester my junior year, I started to hear a lot of rumblings about dissatisfaction on campus. Students felt like their voices weren’t being heard, staff felt disconnected from administration, and a lot was changing as a result of the pandemic. Having a paper to write each week, I naturally wanted these voices to be funneled into the Weather Vane, because a lot of the opinion section of this paper comes straight from the staff, and while the staff of this paper is and has been comprised of some great students, we are a very, very small percentage of the entire student population. It’s rare to hear anything beyond our walls.
During my time as Editor in Chief, I tried to find ways to get people a little more interested in reading The Weather Vane, in hopes that it would inspire people to step forward and write something of their own. I encouraged my staff to bring their own ideas—what they wanted to write— to the table, rather than doling out their assignments each week. We played with polls, poetry, serials, and more, and I used my biweekly editorials to write something a little less editorial-y and a little more reflective. Did it work? Maybe a little. But still the problem remained that the paper’s writing team never seemed to grow beyond the staff itself.
Often if I asked someone to write their opinions or problems or woes into this paper, I was met with a response that was something along the lines of, “well, I don’t really want to put myself out there,” or “I’m not really good at writing,” or, most commonly, “I don’t have the time.” Every time I got one of these responses, I cried a little on the inside, because I could hear the passion in that person’s tone as they talked about whatever was on their mind, and I wanted to throttle them and explain that all you had to do was put that passion into a keyboard and let the copy editors do the rest, and every time I explained that I was still let down.
If it sounds like I’m just venting, it’s because I am. EMU is a community full of people with such strong voices, and yet often I have felt that these voices die before they reach a fulfilling conclusion because they aren’t sure where to go. Don’t be like that. Just write.
I’ll see you around, EMU.
