By Bryan Jackson
Associate Editor
I didn’t know how to start this farewell editorial. I was going to say something witty about how I dislike farewell speeches and addresses for their inherent cheesiness, then point out the irony of that sentiment, considering I’m now writing a farewell.
However, that little witticism didn’t work, mostly because it made me sound like a total jerk, but I suppose it would’ve fit well with my BV style (I proclaimed myself the “Best thing since Dan Barry,” and “Bryan’s Corner of Pretentiousness” houses all my self-indulging, ego-boosting quotes).
When I wasn’t proclaiming to know everything about journalism, writing mechanics and grammar at The BV, I actually learned a ton about journalism, writing mechanics and grammar at The BV. Go figure. In the beginning of each semester, The BV editors do an interest meeting to try to recruit new writers. It’s always awkward, and all us editors kind of drone on about how The BV is great for your academic career, which is true. I really did learn a lot at The BV.
But, as no doubt every BV editor before me has said in their farewell pieces, The BV is about a hell of a lot more than learning the mechanical part of journalism. It’s about developing your voice as a writer. It’s about being in a real (and often really dysfunctional) newsroom.
Mostly, though, it’s about family. (And yes, this paragraph will be the apex of my sappiness.)
I’ve met nearly all of my friends through The BV. Everybody, including me, will probably forget the things I’ve written at The BV, but I’ll never forget the people. I can already say with 100 percent confidence that I’ll never work in a newsroom with better journalists than those I was with at The BV, and, more importantly, I can say I’ll never work with a better group of people. Period. That’s no slight on any of my future colleagues; it’s a testament to my current and past ones.
I know I’ll have these people to lean on for the rest of my life, and they’ll have me, too. If we never make anything out of the rest of our lives, which we will, but if we somehow don’t, we’ll always have what we made at The BV — a top-notch paper and an awesome family.
It’s certainly been a sweet time, guys.
jacksoba@bonaventure.edu
