Chris Banyas
Editor-in-Chief
Running a newspaper has been a painful endeavor for me, mostly due to the number of times I have felt that I have let my superb staff down.
“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”
I have asked the very difficult of them over this past year, and they have delivered in ways that are beyond my wildest imagination.
Gone are the press release regurgitations, institution centric propaganda pieces, vapid recaps of events, both sporting and otherwise; in a few words, the Bengal again has a pulse, which grows stronger with each passing day.
A pulse that, regardless of how strong it beats, is still in danger.
The Bengal has struggled with advertising over the course of the last several years. Chalk that up to the market, or a failure of those directly responsible, i.e. me.
“I’ll drown here trying to get up for some air/But each time I think I breathe/I’m laid on with a double share/of the punishing burden of failure.”
What does this mean for you, the reader?
There has been a trend over the last few years of print publications transitioning to exclusively digital platforms, and this is a very real possibility for your school newspaper in the near future.
And as much as I think this is a vile, evil thing, I understand the perspective of those who control the funding…if we are unable to meet our quota of advertising dollars, why should they continue to give us money?
Here is what I will say: if you have read anything in the paper over the last year that sparked an interest, surprised you, or touched you in any way, then please, please, please be vocal about that.
If you liked something we did, let your senator know, let your student body president know, let everyone and anyone know, because, while we have received very positive feedback on the work we have done and the transition we have undertaken, the response has been far from overwhelming.
Conversely, if you have read things that you did not find amusing, did not enjoy, did not like, be vocal about that as well. We are the student newspaper, and this doesn’t work without a level of interaction between the student body.
We have very little time left together.
In a few short weeks I will officially sign off and pass the torch on to the next bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young journalist, full of hope and blind to the realities of what they hold so idealistically to their heart.
Unlike so many things in this wicked world, human life is ephemeral.
I have taken solace in that fact alone on many occasions over the course of my life: if ever you are presented with an untenable situation, whether that be a power structure, an individual, a ruling class, or anything in between, always know that they, like you, will one day expire.
I remember my Montaigne:
“A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, and suchlike accidents; but as to death, we can experience it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it.”
