Harbus

Issue date: 3/16/09 Section: News

Before anything else, I have a confession to make: I never read nor wrote for the Harbus during my RC year.

Knowing this little fact, you can imagine how conflicted I was when I left Cotting House (the former office of the Harbus) late one night about a year ago. I had just been elected editor-in-chief by the board of directors and the thought that echoed in my mind was, "Can I actually do this? It's a WEEKLY commitment!"

A week later, after I told my good friend Hanli Mangun about my new role in the paper, he corroborated my insecurity by saying, "Dude, what the hell are you getting yourself into?" When my section mate Adam Ireland found out, on the other hand, he challenged me and demanded, "Joey, you've got to fix the paper!" The problem was that there were no editors and writers left on the paper and the people I approached seemed unwilling to commit!

And so that's where I was at the start of my tenure at the Harbus: filled with self-doubt, facing an expecting yet skeptical community, and alone.

Last April, I remember my BGIE professor- Aldo Musacchio- bumping into me as I was nervously walking up and down the corridors of Aldrich. He reached out his hand and said, "Congratulations, I hear you're the new editor of the Harbus."

Little did Aldo know that the reason why I was so jittery that morning was because I was waiting for the release of the paper surrounding on Ann Moore (Chairman & CEO, Time, Inc.) - where some ECs were unhappy with her selection as the class day speaker. The Harbus had never published anything as serious or controversial before. I was unsure how the community would react. One thing I felt strong about, though, was my belief that the paper was a forum where these types of issues should be surfaced and discussed. On that same day, almost simultaneously, I got a lot of feedback that both condemned the unfair and anonymous cover story and praised the courage it took to publish it. And that was just from the editors and board member of the Harbus!

Months later, when we finished putting together the Japan Trek issue, I turned to Marianne Bakula (Harbus Designer) and told her, "No one will see the paper the same way after this issue." That Sunday night and may more afterwards, I often found myself unable to sleep. What kept me awake were not unfinished cases but the haunting question, "Did I make the right decision to publish?"

Of course, even before I got to the point of debating whether to publish something or not (incidentally, the most intriguing articles were usually the ones that never got published), an even more difficult task was often convincing people to write for the paper. On many occasions, I've heard and talked to students within the community who had provocative ideas and valid critiques they seemed passionate about. However, many times, when I asked these same people to write about it to spur a wider discussion within the community, they would often beg off. The typical reason they had was that they were either too busy or that they feared that other people may take offense at their point of view, no matter how respectful they laid it out.

Continued...

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