This term has gone by amazingly quickly. Suddenly, I find myself facing my last issue of the term (not to mention my 4th year project deadline). In my last Editorial of the term, I’m taking the time to reflect on the things I’ve learned from holding this position.
One of my major challenges this term has been censorship. In this case, the censorship isn’t others censoring me, but my own decisions when it comes to choosing what I will and will not publish. Those who know me know that I’m a fairly opinionated (ok, very opinionated) person. In my position, as Editor-in-Chief (EIC), I’ve had to read and publish opinions which were drastically opposed to mine.
I’ve also had to cut articles, defer articles to a future issue for lack of space and request rewrites of particularly incoherent articles. These are decisions that come with the job of EIC of any newspaper, but it’s always difficult to ensure that I’m making the right editorial decisions or if I’m letting my personal views have too much impact on the choices I’m making.
It’s a hard balance to reach. On one hand, I don’t want to drive away my contributors and, on the other hand, I want to produce a quality newspaper; therefore, articles must be kept up to a certain standard and must feature appropriate content. While I can be a fairly good judge of quality writing (as my copy editors can do wonders with articles), sometimes the line between content that is inappropriate and content that just I disagree with is hard to find.
Thankfully, I have my advisory board and staff as a resource to temper my opinions. There are articles found within the pages of the five issues of this term which never would have seen the light of day had others not pushed me to print them or to give an author a second (or third) chance to rewrite an article.
Another challenge has been working with a variety of people who have very different priorities than me. While I do have my staff writers, I still get a lot of content coming from people not directly involved with The Iron Warrior. They don’t necessarily respect my deadlines and because I can’t really cut all the late content, there isn’t much I can do to keep them from being late. In the past, these kinds of contributors have tended to be very late, putting pressure on the entire staff during production weekends.
This term I have tried to be much firmer about deadlines than other Editors have been in the past. I moved the deadline up to noon from 6 pm; while this was an unpopular move, it seems to have dramatically increased the number of articles we see by the end of Friday night.
I’ve cut content for being too late which have, in a couple of instances, cost me future submissions. With that in mind, it’s also meant that we’re not scrambling for content Saturday night, which then leads to finishing the paper at a reasonable time on Sunday. I will admit to being too hard on people sometimes, but without the ability to enforce my deadlines in any meaningful way, the only way to ensure content comes in close to or on-time has been to be really adamant about the deadline. (I might have threatened to have a wall of shame in the office of all the people who have been late, but I never actually did it.)
Overall, managing this paper has been a big learning experience. I’ve had to deal with not only fellow students, but also with administration and advertisers (many thanks to my amazing advertising manager, Kate Heymans). On one hand, I’m a student trying to get through 4A, and on the other, I’m running the newspaper. I’ve had to vastly improve my time management skills in order to balance two very demanding responsibilities. I’ve also had to improve my people skills. I’m not naturally someone who deals well with managing groups of people; I’m much more comfortable sitting in a corner of the office with a laptop and yelling at them about their grammar. Learning how to manage people and to get them working without driving them away has been a valuable lesson and I think I did a fairly good job at it.
And look what was accomplished. I’m very proud of the issues that have been produced this term and of my team who have made it possible. Although, at the very beginning, I was worried over my choice to take this position, I have to say that I have no regrets. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also had to, if not accept others’ ideas, certainly pay more attention to them than I had in the past. According to Kate, I’ve also become a better manager over the term and it’s nice to hear that others see that this experience has helped me too.
If you’re not involved in any student initiatives on campus, I’d highly recommend it. It’s a chance to do something other than school and an additional chance to develop the soft skills that they keep talking at us about. We’re always looking for more help at The Iron Warrior, whether it is writers, proofreaders or layout editors. If not, there are countless other student teams and clubs on campus which are also looking for people. If working with a newspaper doesn’t appeal to you, why not find something that does?
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