It is hard to put into words how much The Web means to me. I remember how excited I was sophomore year to walk into room 2600 as an official member of The Web staff. I wore my gray “America Needs Journalists” hoodie that day, and for the first time I felt that I was truly a journalist. Journalism has always been my dream. Growing up the news was always on, NPR in the morning while my mother made coffee, PBS Newshour in the evening, and BBC World News at ten. I thought of the White House correspondents as superheroes with the way they protected democracy, and I watched the way news reports gave dimension to people. I wanted nothing more than to be like them, to give voice to the voiceless, to breathe life and color into the issues that seem at first glance black and white. The Web has given me the opportunity to live out that dream. I have gotten lost in people’s stories during interviews, I have written articles that have transformed people I used to simply pass in the hall into people with the most incredible experiences and stories, and I have written articles that have truly resulted in change. My time on The Web has been an exercise in perseverance and patience, but it has also been a labor of love. As a person I have become more in touch with my school and my community than I ever could have imagined through The Web. I do not know how I could have grown as much as I did in the past four years without it. To say I will miss it is an understatement.
To the Staff:
It has been an honor to be your editor and to work with you. You have breathed life into this paper. I told you on the first day of class to use your voice, and you did. From sports coverage to politics, you have taken note of the stories that most affect our school and have written about them. Thank you for dedicating yourself to The Web, to writing, and to storytelling, your school and community are a better place because of it. I will miss laughing with you at DJ’s jokes almost as much as I will miss the hours we spent at coffee shops and libraries working on layout. Thank you for becoming a little community over the past year, for proving that despite our small size we could produce work that was of the same quality as larger and better resourced high school papers. To my fellow senior Web members, I know that many of you are going on to pursue journalism, and I cannot wait to see what your future holds. To the juniors, I know that you will do great things with The Web next year.
To DJ:
DJ, when we celebrated your birthday last week we truly meant what we wrote in your letter. You are by far the funniest teacher that is employed at Ames High. If there was a SNO award for “Journalism Advisor with Best Dry Humor” you would take it away every week. Thank you for making us laugh all the time. Whether it was telling the staff you have an RBF last week or asking Gemini relentlessly whether Harvard or Yale students are more attractive, thank you for always causing us to crack a smile. Thank you also, for always being there for us as a staff. Regardless of how controversial an article idea is, you are always there to support and edit it. Your door is always open for us to slip in and talk to you after school, and you never get tired of our conversations or questions. But above all, thank you for advocating for our paper. You are the first person that stands up for us, who ensures that we get the funding we need, and that we are never taken for granted as student journalists. You are the reason the journalism program at Ames High continues. DJ, you mean so much to us as a staff, thank you for everything- we could not do it without you. Maybe when you retire you can pursue a stand-up comedy career. We would all fund your Netflix special.
To You, the Reader:
If you have read this far, congratulations, you are among a select few who read articles in their entirety. If you are skimming and your eyes have stumbled onto this sentence- stop and stay awhile, I want to talk about you. As you may have noticed, this is a farewell built on thank yous. So thank you, whether your eyes have stumbled their way here or if you have read every word diligently- your attention, fleeting or otherwise, means the world to us. Journalism is not easy. It is work that forces you to question every step of the way. Whether it is sources or ethics or yourself, there is always doubt embedded somewhere in our work. It is made more difficult by the fact that journalism is often dubbed a dying profession. Personally, I do not think journalism will ever die. Journalism is bound to government and people and stories. As long as there is writing, journalism will exist. I do not know, however, if journalism will always be able to maintain relevance. Irrelevant things exist in multitudes after all. Sometimes I feel like giving up. Print editions are always a labor of love, funding is sometimes scarce, and some stories that take up hours of brainstorming and source hunting simply never come to fruition. Sometimes I feel that no one is reading, that despite the hours we spend working, our site visits never increase. But you, the reader, always seem to prove me wrong. I cannot explain the joy I feel on distribution day, when I watch the way our cover art makes you reach for an issue, when I walk through the halls and watch you leaf through an issue, pointing at something with your friends. It is a feeling only second to the one I have when I find a note from you sitting in my inbox the next day, when you tell me that a part of my writing resonated with you. As a writer there is no greater joy. I joined The Web because of this, because I wanted to have a space to share my voice, and because I wanted to represent the issues affecting students. The Web has given me this, but it has been because of you, because you have chosen to read and interact. So keep skimming, keep flipping through our pages, keep reading every word diligently- we would not exist without you. Dear reader, thank you.
For the last time as your Editor-in-Chief:
Sincerely, Chantal
