I’d like to issue an apology. At one point or another, I screwed up. And for that, I’m sorry.
You probably didn’t know your feedback was important, but it was. You made me rethink the way I approach journalism and the way I approach life, and I think I came out a better person because of it. It isn’t much consolation, but it’s true.
My job (news editor) involves a lot of screwing up. It means missing stories, bad reporting, poor writing and factual mistakes. Sometimes it’s my fault, sometimes it’s just the nature of the job. I wish I could say that I never made the same mistake twice, but that just isn’t true.
I’m the person (along with my crew chief, Dan) who made a lot of Pipe Dream’s toughest decisions. But I called the balls and strikes as best I could —a news editor and an umpire have a lot in common. When we’re invisible it means things are going well. When we’re not, it means we’re screwing up. We have to make a decision on every close call.
No umpire’s perfect, and I tried to take responsibility for my mistakes, just like I tried to shrug off the the people here or there who blamed me when their team was losing — even though my decision was right. I tried not to let those people affect me the next time a pitch was close.
What is true is that I put everything I had into this paper, or pretty damn close to it. Most people don’t know what it takes to get Pipe Dream on the racks twice per week. It takes a lot.
I wanted Pipe Dream to be the best paper it could be. I wanted it for myself, for my colleagues and for you, my reader(s). This paper means everything to me; it was my college experience.