It's been less than two years and two months since I reported my first article for The State Press.
It was a lunch lecture by President Crow, and I was pumped. I situated myself in a nondescript corner of the Old Main ballroom and pulled out my reporter's notebook, a trapper-keeper's worth of writing utensils (in case one or 50 stopped working) and my new digital recorder to capture every thrilling second.
It was during the question-and-answer session when everything went horribly wrong.
An audience member asked Crow what the rest of the ASU community thought about his stance on something, and he gestured toward me, saying something like, "I guess we'll see in the newspaper tomorrow."
Literally, with a giant swoosh, the whole crowd turned their eyes toward me, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"-style. I think a few people gasped; someone might have shrieked near the buffet. The media had invaded!
And there I was, crouched in the corner like a hobgoblin clutching my ridiculous assortment of utensils. A woman in the crowd cautiously asked me later if I was going to write anything bad.
Needless to say, my first story turned out awful — not really probing, overstuffed with sources, a poor beginner's work. But rereading that story today, as I write what will likely be my last piece for this newspaper, I realize that the biggest problem wasn't those beginner mistakes. It was the fact that I allowed myself to be, for many in the crowd, an outsider. I was a menacing media-member looking to stir up trouble for no reason — there for the quick hit or the sound bite I could drag back to my dank basement lair, use to cook up something crazy, and serve it up cold the next day.
So if there's one key idea I tried to bring to my strange, slapdash editorship at this newspaper, it was to not allow The State Press, as much as possible, to be the media. It's a confusing time for those of us working in newspapers, and as our profession seeks to find its identity, I think we need to remember that we're nothing if it's not with you.
So in the stories and photos we printed this semester, I hope we've shown, however imperfectly, that this is where our motivation lies. We care what happens with guns on campus because it's our campus, too. We care how the Memorial Union is redesigned because it's our MU, too. We care what happens with tuition, with ASU and with all of you because it's our money, it's our University and you're our classmates and friends. Conveying this idea through relevant, engaging work is what my amazing staff and supervisors have strived for this semester, and they've worked damn hard.
I know this focus and determination is shared by Brian Indrelunas, a great writer and editor who will be taking this position from me next year. As one of my first editors, it was to Brian that I turned in my mess of a story two years ago. I only hope I will not be handing him this paper in a similarly dire state.
As for what will happen with me, with you and with ASU, "I guess we'll see in the newspaper" — or news channel, or blog, or who-the-hell-knows — "tomorrow."
— James Kindle
Editor in chief, Spring 2008
