The most important thing I learned from being an editor this year at the Daily Bruin is that sometimes, you just have to be done.
There comes a time when you need to settle for a simple lede because nothing clever is working, when you need to cut a paragraph because there is no more time to make it readable. It’s deadline, or a little bit later, and you’ve just got to turn in the best article you can. It may not be what you’d envisioned for the page, but it’s good, and all the other options fell through.
So now that the final deadline is approaching, it’s time for me be done: to add this one final column to my Daily Bruin portfolio and peace out. And while my four years here may not have been perfect, I’d like to highlight some of the reasons why I can leave Kerckhoff with no regrets.
I’ve already interviewed the biggest celebrity on earth. I still have Julie Andrews on my recorder to prove it: She says my name at least three times.
I’ve already had my “big-time journalist” moment, sitting outside at the Chateau Marmont Hotel with the director of “Pride & Prejudice” as he rolled cigarettes and chatted with me about films and one of my favorite books.
I’ve learned to look at all possible angles of a story, and can now recall my worst Daily Bruin memory fondly. It was my first article, a 500-word piece about a one-act play on campus. After it was published, I received an e-mail from the writer of the play, in which he told me in strong language that I had failed to convey the depth in his work. I called my editor, ready to quit because I thought I couldn’t do the job well enough. But my editor calmed me down and showed me the bright side of the story: at least someone read it.
And this year, as A&E editor, in addition to passing on drunken folklore and watching wide-eyed interns grow into discerning journalists, I got the most importance experience of all. I finally got to see what made my editors so comfortingly cheerful, able to spout hysterical wall quotes even after a day of complaints and pushy publicists: each other. Because how can you be miserable in a newsroom? Someone else is always having a worse day. A story in my section needed two hours of editing? Well, the ad space just changed and now a designer has to start over. Both stories for tomorrow fell through? Well, DBTV was in the office till 6 a.m.
The day-to-day grind is exhausting, but everyone comes back the next day smiling, joking, talking about how to make this day’s paper better than the last. Because even if yesterday’s paper was not perfect, it’s old news.
My Daily Bruin career may be old news now, too. There is no time for last-minute changes, but I don’t know that I would have any. I’m proud that I did it, and it’s time to step out of the windowless office, into the sunlight and onto the next story.
Crocker was the 2007-2008 Arts & Entertainment editor. She joined the Daily Bruin in fall 2004 and was a staff writer in 2007.