The glory days

As I prepare to head back to work tomorrow after a very short break with a renewed energy aimed at producing quality journalism, I can't help but think back on a time when my passion for the craft blossomed and thrived. A time when my colleagues and I inspired each other every day. A time when we could spend hours debating every facet of the paper we produced, from the front page headline to the puzzling horoscopes on the back page. That is, we could have debated those things for hours, if we took the time, but as it was we were always rushed. Regardless, my three years working for our weekly university student newspaper seems, in hindsight, a time when anything was possible.

OK, maybe not anything. We might not have won any awards during my years there, but The Gazette crew I remember did work hard for little thanks. And we did manage to have some good times. Some moments, of course, were better than others. The great divide between the news section and the arts section, the epic power struggles between some of the editors and the general insomnia (or was that just me?) probably did more harm than good. Some of us threatened to quit every week, while some of us actually did throw in the towel (strikingly similar to my current work life, actually.) But (to wax poetic) I found a sense of camaraderie (however naive) in our little third floor newspaper office that can only exist among people who know what it's like to put out a paper every week, starting from nothing every time.

And it so happens that I came across video evidence of our commendable togetherness and impeccable communication skills while sorting through files on my laptop recently.

I demonstrated my pro-quality super awesome videography skills by filming this video during one of the final Gazette staff meetings (a.k.a. Greco's carnage ritual) of the school year on April 1, 2008, while I was news editor. We sparred for the better part of an hour in what seemed, on the surface, to be a silly argument about streeters and hot/nots. But underneath all that superficial stuff, we were really concerned with the deeper ethics guiding the entire newspaper industry. Unrecognized geniouses are we. A pretty typical meeting, I would say. I like to call it The Great Printable Humour Debate of '08.

If any of my former colleagues object to (read: have lost all sense of humour about) this brilliance being broadcast on the interwebs, let me know and I promise to duly consider your desperate pleas to remove it. As with all good journalistic endeavours, this piece has not been censored.

To my fellow journos: if this doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will. For the rest of you, there's not really much sense in watching.


Enjoy.