As this next year comes around the bend, I will be entering my fourth year on staff of The Rider and third year as an editor. During my stint of involvement with Legacy Journalism, I’ve gained new views while reinforcing others, making journalism more of an experience to be had rather than a lesson learned. My mindset has been inexplicably altered through Mallett’s guidance, leading to my enlightenment on the following subjects.
1. The co-existence of good and evil
The world is not something that is laid out in black and white, where everyone naturally gravitates towards Good Samaritan deeds. We are not inlaid within a set mold as being purely “good” or “evil”. Instead, choices are eventually made which set us apart. Starting out freshman year, I was a staff photographer for The Rider. The position outlasted my first year of high school and I went on into my second and third years as not only a staff photographer, but also Photo Editor of The Rider. Parallel to my progress with The Rider, a second organism was festering and breeding, The Arena, and while the yearbook staff is commended and admired within their own realm, competition is as natural as good and evil, and was sure to form. Both detested and respected, The Arena laid dormant in my mind until junior year, when I became Journalism Photo Editor and had to cross the line, declaring a co-existence between good and evil.
2. Time is an abstract concept
Our schedules, days, and lives are structured by a warped system manufactured by man: Time. The idea that our actions must abide to an ideology made up of 60 minute factions is a complete figment of mankind’s imagination and is only still in use due to continuous promotion. My journalism education has enlightened me with a new timetable: The approximate amount of time it takes to complete an issue of The Rider is substituted in for months, and seasons have ceased to exist as there is only Yearbook Season. While time is something that has been created to literally pass the time with, deadlines have been in use since you, me, and Moses and are implemented by Mother Nature herself with gale wind force.
3. The ability to communicate is vital
If the people you surround yourself with define your person, then social skills play a heavy hand in the shaping of our characters. Through journalism, being able to communicate serves an equally important role, be it through articles or photos. Newspaper has opened my eyes to the varied ways in which we communicate, surpassing social, physical, and mental implications to impress ideas and information on each other. I’ve seen editors bark brute, guttural, ape-like sounds to tell a fellow staffer, “Please, can you complete this story within the next hour and a half?” I’ve seen Mallett accept a gallon of sweet tea and free lawn care services from staffers asking, “Would you be so kind as to extend this deadline?” I’ve seen photo files be passed out like currency to coaches as a way for photographers to say, “May I stand behind your team for protection from your King Kong-esque football players?” Anyway you say it, conveying the message is just as important as forming it.
Journalism isn’t only a class about interviewing and photographing the student body; it’s about finding your role within that collective whole and is as inspirational and emotional as a faked TAKS essay. Being Newspaper and Journalism Photo Editor has given me the opportunity to explore Legacy firsthand and form my own educational footprint through photographing and attending more home games, theater productions, and pep rallies than any other student at Legacy. Hopefully my purpose will be further extended through out my senior year and onto completion, and I’ll pick up on more journalism morality. Or then again, I might have really obtained nothing during my three-year duration and am simply waxing pathetic through an ironic juxtaposition of Mallett’s inspirational posters.
