Away on a mountain retreat, our fledgling editors sat in a wide circle learning a lesson in storytelling on a Saturday night.
The prompt hung ambivalently in the autumn air, the angle undefined: What has made you who you are?
Nobody spoke for a few pensive minutes. The wood floor was hard beneath us, the lights off. Clothes rustled as we shifted nervously. We barely knew each other.
Hesitantly, the stories came out one by one. No one interrupted, no one responded. Our ears attuned to the quavering voices, quiet at first, then gaining speed and rambling through memories ““ with no direction and no editing, just stories in the raw, shared into the unassuming darkness.
Three hours later, we turned on the lights, meeting each other’s bleary eyes and softened faces.
Some sense of closeness emerged that night as we fumbled through our stories, trying to express the essence of ourselves in hopes that someone in the room would understand.
After all, that’s what we do here ““ tell stories.
Every day we tell tales of adversity and achievement, corruption and creativity, frustration and friendship.
So much life has graced our fingertips, as we humbly try our best to get the heart of a story just right.
On that autumn night, we realized that the heart of a true community paper comes from within one of the most important communities ““ our own.
That night, a family was born out of love for one another and love for our craft, and what it means to care for a group of people who choose to live their lives in parallel, if only for a few years.
That family has only grown this year. Each story lived within and beyond the walls of our newsroom adds to the expanse of experience we have shared.
As student-journalists, we live at the intersection of these stories, depending on the strength, tenacity and kindness of strangers-turned-family to make a community, make a statement and make it through the year.
And we made it. So, next year’s staff and readers: Now it’s your turn to make a paper.
Jow was the editor in chief for 2011-2012, a slot editor and news reporter for 2010-2011 and a copy editor for 2008-2010.