As far as advice and farewells go, I’ve always liked what Conan O’Brian said on his last Tonight Show: “All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism – it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
Before this year, The Crimson White always felt like a vague sort of monster to me – sometimes a source of insight, sometimes a source of controversy, and never too personally significant (a sentiment, which, now that I think about it, is probably held by many students towards many organizations on a campus this large). Simply because I heard that Victor Luckerson had gained the editorship in the spring of 2010, I applied to work as a copy editor for the 2010-2011 year. 12 months later, I do not regret this decision at all.
Since I am a senior and will be graduating this May, this year was my first and last as an editor for The Crimson White, and it’s been a blast. Sure, staying in the newsroom until 2 am on a Wednesday night in the summer isn’t ideal, but the experience of meeting deadlines, editing copies, and updating the website is excellent. More importantly than that, you get the opportunity to make new friends and work as a part of a team of talented and intelligent people to consistently produce a product numerous times a week, which is highly rewarding.
To limit myself to three names, Jon Reed, this year’s managing editor; Adam Greene, this year’s chief copy editor; and Victor have all been tremendous assets to both the paper itself as well as to all the newcomers who didn’t have the first clue that AP style in journalism classes meant something different than AP style in English classes, let alone everything else it takes to make a newspaper every day. I owe a great deal to them for making my time in the newsroom successful and enjoyable. It’s a stroke of good fortune that they, as well as a swath of returning and incoming talents, will still remain to protect the CW’s house for the 2011-2012 year.
To all the English majors reading this, seriously consider copy editing, at the CW or elsewhere, as a viable career opportunity. If you haven’t already, you’ll soon be going through a senior year crisis mode, and this is one base you may want to have covered.
To all the creative writers, as your next writing prompt, I challenge you to come to the newsroom and help our designers write headlines. Highly limited space, highly limited subject matter—it’s harder than you think. One hint: “Alabama,” “Bama,” “Tide,” and “UA” are all acceptable and interchangeable.
On two more personal notes, I encourage everyone to support UA’s new literary magazine, DewPoint, as it proceeds into its second year in 2011-2012. The email address for all questions or submissions is [email protected]. Additionally, I encourage anyone interested in being a dj for WVUA to go to the station in Reese Phifer and sign up to do it. In addition to the CW, working for WVUA has been one of the most influential aspects of my college career. May 2, 2011 at 8 p.m. will begin Up Beat Up’s four-hour series finale episode on 90.7 FM, The Capstone.
And to all of next year’s copy editors, I encourage you to have patience, energy, and a sense of humor. Don’t be afraid to keep picking the AP Style Manual right back up again. Remember, an ellipsis at the end of a sentence is still followed by a period; an Oxford comma is never OK, ever, except for sometimes when it is OK; and there are three kinds of dashes—the hyphen, the en (short) dash, and the em (long) dash—and while there usage is often little-celebrated, they can be your best friends – especially the en dashes.
Also, cling tightly to your red pens. You will be able to trade them for money, food, and allies by the end of your spring semester.
In this column alone, there are five improper instances of punctuation, one case of homophonic word confusion, one mistake regarding numerals, one mistake regarding time and date citation, one mistake regarding composition titles, one mistake regarding acronyms for the University, and one important person’s name misspelled. At least. Additionally, copy editors, you now find yourself burdened with perhaps your first case of making a headline for a rambling, disjointed column. Have a wonderful year!
Parker White was a copy editor for The Crimson White for the 2010-2011 school year.
