Good Morning
It’s finally time to say goodbye.
During the last three years, I have overseen the production of 52 print editions – and with the one you’re reading right now, it’s all over – as a top editor of The Franklin. While I halfway expected to be done after my sophomore year, it was you, the readers, that made me come back.
I know that part of me wants to say that my senior colleagues and I continued to devote our lives, especially on Wednesday night production nights, because we wanted to make sure the publication survived, but that wouldn’t be quite accurate, and after all that’s kind of important. This is a publication with more than 100 years of history; it would’ve survived our exodus. Instead we wanted it to thrive.
While we were never perfect – I was never the best speller in the world – I think we achieved that goal. But ultimately that’s up to you the reader. There are times I know we didn’t serve you to the best of our ability, whether it was a story we didn’t do, an angle we failed to pursue or just facts we screwed up, but I have enjoyed sharing your Friday mornings with you. I hope you feel the same. That’s the highest compliment I could receive.
I could say how important the staff has been to me, whether it was working under my high school friend Eric Bradner – who somehow talked me out of heading to Bloomington and IU – or alongside Steve Dickerson, Julie Crothers or Katie Coffin, but they, and the rest of the staff during my years, should already know how important they are to me.
Same goes with the Pulliam School of Journalism faculty. I could write 1,000 words and not even scratch the surface on the roles each one of you have played in shaping who I am, so I’ll use just two: Thank you.
While it’s true The Franklin played a huge part in my college experience, they certainly won’t be the only things I use to define my last four years. Instead, it will be the friendships and experiences these last four years that I will remember forever. I’m running out of space, but those of you who have been by my side know what those experiences are.
So I would like to channel my inner Edward R. Murrow and deliver a simple message to my fellow seniors, the Franklin family and future staffs of this publication.
Goodbye and good luck.
