Daily Coby Troy McCullough

lumnist

Sometimes when you’re not careful, an entire school year can slip away without notice. I feel like this is what happened this year. It went by so fast.

In many ways, I feel like I got this job as editor in chief five minutes ago. But in a lot of other ways, I feel like I’ve been doing this for years. This has been a challenging and exciting year for the Daily and for me. Compared to when I began this job last August, I have changed in many ways.

I feel wiser and much more jaded. I’m more sensitive to many issues, and desensitized to many others. At times, being the editor of a student-run university newspaper hasn’t always been easy.

Running a misprint in last semester’s finals week schedule and facing the consequences was anything but easy. And it hasn’t always been fun. Telling a long-time friend that I had no choice but to run his name in the police blotter caused me quite a bit of agony.

But it’s always been interesting. And each step of the way I’ve learned something about the Daily, about this university and about the media in general. Not all of it made me happy.

Here are a few of the more interesting tidbits of information that I’ve picked up over this past year.

* Many of those in charge of enforcing the laws do not know the laws themselves.

On three occasions over the past year, Daily photographers have decided to take pictures of ISU Parking Systems officials in action. Each of the three times, the photographers were threatened with arrest — which is a clear violation of their right, as several lawyers have pointed out to us.

A public officer working on public property (namely the university) is free game for photographs as long as the photographers aren’t directly interfering with official business.

When I confronted one of the officers and told her our photographers had every right to take her photograph on public property, the woman intelligently informed me that the university isn’t public property, it’s state property.

Those are your tax dollars at work. Scary isn’t it?

* As human beings, we have a long way to go.

“Racial tensions run high at ISU,” “Students, faculty march for diversity,” “Panel: Perceptions of African Americans needs to be changed at ISU.”

These headlines could have run last week. They didn’t. The headlines are from the Daily in the fall of 1992.

As editor of this paper, I have seen first-hand the tensions that exist between us on campus. I would like to say that in my five years at Iowa State, things have improved. But they haven’t, and we are all to blame.

On this campus, we are all intolerant of each other. None of us are willing to compromise in our viewpoints, and all of us refuse to walk a mile in each other’s shoes.

But when it comes to pointing fingers and placing blame, we come out on top. Without thinking, we scream racism. Then we scream reverse-discrimination. And on, and on, and on. I have been in the unique position of viewing most of the sides in these debates.

It has saddened me to see the stories on the front page, to read and write the editorials on the opinion page and to watch the insults fly in the letters to the editor.

I don’t have an answer to the complex problems of diversity and racial tension on campus. But it seems to me that we could do better than polarizing ourselves. We in the university community are the best and the brightest. We are the most educated. And we are the leaders in society. I sincerely hope that in the future we begin to act like it.

* If you try to speak your mind, someone will try to stop you.

Now is not the time to drudge up bad memories, so I will simply say this: On many occasions over this past year, I have been very surprised at the amount of resistance and negative feedback I have received for publishing responsibly written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces. And it’s been tough.

It is very difficult to publish a news story when people are pressuring you to cover up the facts. And it is very difficult to publish an opinion piece on something you firmly believe in, knowing that it will upset several fellow students.

But maybe one of the greatest things I have learned this year is to not be afraid of the truth.

You don’t become an editor of a newspaper to win popularity contests. If the facts are there, then we must inform the public of them. And if I or anyone has a responsible opinion to express, then we damn well better express it.

Freedom of speech should be defended and not feared.

* Student apathy is a myth.

Over the past year, my job has allowed me to work with members of the Government of the Student Body, the Veishea Committee, The InterFraternity and Panhellenic councils, the InterResidence Halls Association and many, many other organizations on campus.

What I have found is that thousands of students are working very hard every day to make this campus and this world a better place to be. Many of them are volunteers, and most of them don’t receive the credit they deserve. The next time someone tells you that nobody at ISU cares about anything, tell them to open their eyes and look around.

* Running a newspaper is harder than it looks.

I was quite naive when I began this job. What one year’s tenure as editor has taught me is that I’m not as good a reporter as I thought I was, and I wasn’t as good an editor as I thought I would be … but I’m getting there.

Hope you all have a good Dead Week and a stress-free finals week.

Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the editor in chief of the Daily.