{"id":14239,"date":"2020-02-06T15:47:07","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T21:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=14239"},"modified":"2020-02-06T15:47:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T21:47:10","slug":"my-least-favorite-part-of-my-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2020\/02\/06\/my-least-favorite-part-of-my-job\/","title":{"rendered":"My least favorite part of my job"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stepping into a new role, position or job always comes with a learning curve; it\u2019s inevitable. Transitioning into the editor\u2019s position this year was no exception. Every week \u2014 every day, even \u2014 I\u2019m learning new things, often on the fly. There are parts of this job I didn\u2019t even know existed until it came time to do them. Luckily, I work with people who forgive my mistakes and help me through the new lessons that seem to be never-ending.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to learning new skills, tactics and tasks, I\u2019ve also quickly discovered which parts of this role are my favorites \u2014 and my least.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re interested in knowing about the best parts of this job, shoot me an email or stop me in the student center. I would be thrilled to describe how much fun it is to see the paper printed for the first time on Thursday nights, work with people who are also dear friends and get a sneak peak of the new Ramen Doodle every week. Who knows? Maybe I\u2019ll write a column about it at some point.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, however, is not that column. No, this is the one where I\u2019d like to discuss one of my least favorite parts of the job.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every issue of The Bison begins with a Monday meeting and a blank white board. On this board are the titles of our various sections and empty spots for stories. We then brainstorm until we\u2019ve filled it with story topics, photo\/graphic assignments and writers. By the end of the process, the board is covered in my sloppy penmanship.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s daunting, to say the least.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart begins to beat a little faster, and my palms start to sweat about 15 minutes before our meeting every week. It\u2019s scary to be faced with the blank board, knowing in the next hour it has to be filled with relevant stories. What if we can\u2019t come up with enough? What if we miss the point? And the worst fear \u2014 what are the stories out there we\u2019re missing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll be honest: We make mistakes sometimes. Specifically, I make mistakes. There are stories that get missed in the shuffle, especially if we don\u2019t hear about them soon enough. There are voices not heard often enough. There are topics we are not allowed to discuss. I apologize for those instances.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I must say that one of my least favorite parts of this job is also one of the most powerful. Even though we miss things sometimes, we do end up filling that board every week with over 20 stories, and I\u2019m proud of that. While some are more light-hearted than others, none of them are pointless. Every source, every interview, every topic \u2014 people contributed to those. Stories, big or small, are being told.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary purpose of a newspaper is to serve and inform the current community, but another role is that of recording history as it happens. When someone picks up a copy of The Bison years down the road, we hope they can get a snapshot of what life was like on this campus in February 2020. As we plan our stories every Monday, we try to consider our readers of today first, and then we consider what needs to be preserved for the searchers of tomorrow.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we\u2019ll continue to fill the board week after week. We\u2019ll do our best to find the stories that need to be shared and do our best to portray them honestly. If you have any suggestions, we\u2019ll listen \u2014 please reach out. This newspaper is a community effort, for today and tomorrow. Thank you for continuing to partner with us.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stepping into a new role, position or job always comes with a learning curve; it\u2019s inevitable. Transitioning into the editor\u2019s position this year was no exception. Every week \u2014 every…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15102,"featured_media":13763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14240,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239\/revisions\/14240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}