If you had asked me 4 years ago as a senior in high school if I would write for my college newspaper, I would’ve said “I don’t know, maybe, but probably not.” At the activities fair when I signed up for The Weekly, I was unsure if I would ever actually write an article.
Today, I couldn’t imagine my college experience without it, and this marks my 36th article. During my time, we’ve nearly doubled the size of our staff, created a section for marginalized artists to share their work (alongside Mustafa), and broadly caused quite a stir, more than once. We also ensured that The Weekly kept printing, maintaining the legacy of a paper that celebrates its’ 140th birthday this year. I can’t lie, and if you’ve ever spoken to me you’d know this, I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done here.
You might not know what goes into creating each issue of The Weekly, but it’s quite literally the definition of a team effort. At one point, I deduced that each issue requires the participation of at least 60 students (when it comes down to writers, editors, photographers and those quoted). All of these efforts come together to produce around 16 stories each week, which our very dedicated managing/copy/layout editors stay up late (at our latest, until 4 a.m.) to compile into the neatly packaged issue you pick up on Thursdays (thank you Johnny, Sarah, Or-El, Katie, Bri, Keanna, Harry and more). Without each and every member of the staff, the paper would not be possible. I am beyond grateful for your commitment and dedication.
People often say “step out of your comfort zone,” but I wonder how many people really do that. Honestly, I hadn’t really planned on doing it either. Near the end of my freshman year, I had served as a news editor for a grueling 3 weeks when the EIC at the time pulled me aside and asked me to take on the role of leading the paper. I’ll be honest and tell you that I said “no.” I was young, anxious, and believe it or not, pretty shy, too. I was still finding my footing, and the newspaper was something I was just trying out. I did not feel ready to run the paper, and actually felt pretty certain I would run it into the ground.
And then, the pandemic hit (one day, there will be an issue of The Weekly where COVID isn’t mentioned, today is not that day). In the fall of 2020, I received a call from Professor Sara Vigneri that there was nobody who could step into the role, and the paper might cease to exist if I didn’t take on editor-in-chief (in retrospect I think she was just really trying to convince me). Members of our staff often joke that there’s not a hill I won’t die on, so I reluctantly said yes, and thus began what would be a very long and somehow also lightning-fast nearly 3 years as EIC.
It’s worth taking the time to thank Sara immensely for pushing me to take this on. I don’t think she could’ve foreseen the plethora of frantic text messages, phone calls, rants and even an occasional invite to a meeting with administrative staff that she would receive when she made that fateful phone call (and I often wonder if she would’ve made the same choice had she known).
Over time, The Weekly has been party to a fair share of controversy. People have emptied our newsstands into garbage cans or dorm rooms, posted about us on a variety of social media platforms and we’ve received plenty of angry emails and direct messages. Sounds to me like we’ve done some pretty good journalism.
The Weekly was never part of my plan, but it quickly became a massive part of my Muhlenberg experience. I would not be who I am without it. To those who I know will continue to keep the paper afloat, there’s still a lot of work to be done. Keep fighting to raise the minimum wage on campus, hold people accountable, create space for art and honesty and build community in our little basement office.
Honestly, I don’t really know how to say goodbye. It’s hard to believe that my Tuesday evenings are going to be wide open from here forward. Before The Weekly, I barely knew what journalism was, and now it’s forever part of my life. To the people who made this office home, thank you, and I can’t wait to see everything that all of you do.
Cydney Wilson ’23 is a Political Science major with a self-design major in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and a minor in Africana Studies. Being The Weekly’s editor-in-chief has been one of the greatest joys of her college experience. She enjoys writing about the subjects that make people angry, and hopes that her journalism will inspire change, both on campus and in the world.