Final letter from the editor

Forum editor looks back on four years with the Mirror

I started writing for the Mirror my freshman year because my mom told me to.

I received an email from the then Editor-in-Chief Noah Wicks inviting me to the meeting. He probably sent an email to all of the freshman English and journalism majors, and I was still unsure about college extracurriculars. 

That was still when I found time to call my mom basically every day. She encouraged me to go even after I whined about how much I hated journalistic writing and how I didn’t want to get forced into it. She told me I could write for the opinion section to gain experience, and I guess that sounded okay because I showed up to the meeting.

Four years later, I have three years of forum editing experience and a reluctant and growing love for journalism. I’ve learned a lot throughout the years, and some of it might be useful. So, I thought I’d take a moment for some entirely unsolicited advice, which will inevitably devolve into a love letter to the section that helped me grow up.

1.  Email directly.

If you want a response, even if you need to ask multiple people the same question, send a direct email. If it feels personal, they’ll feel obligated to get back to you more quickly if you email them personally.

2. Don’t be afraid to change things up. 

Just because it has been done that way in the past doesn’t mean it must continue that way. Sometimes, “Tweets of the Week” will have to become “Hot Takes of the Week” because almost no one in Gen Z regularly uses Twitter (or, I guess, X now), and you’re tired of spending half of press night trying to scrounge up mildly entertaining Tweets from members of the Augustana community. 

All of it eventually results in a series of angry rants that eventually prompt your editor-in-chief to suggest making a change, which you had been thinking about doing anyway but thought you had to keep up with the tradition. Don’t do that. Change it before it gets to that point.

3. Check your work.

Even if you’ve checked it three times, throw it in a Google Doc to at least get a quick spell check. You may think you’re human Grammarly, but you aren’t, and that’s okay. Tools are there to help you, and not using them is only a detriment to you.

4. It’s not about the opinion. It’s about the argument. 

The best opinion pieces don’t necessarily convince you that their point of view is correct. The best opinion pieces craft an argument in such a way that provides a fresh perspective and makes you think about the topic in new ways. There’s so much less pressure when you realize that you’re not trying to change people’s opinions — that’s not going to happen — you’re just asking your audience to consider another way of thinking about something.

5. You can let people help you. 

For the last three years, I have been the main designer of the forum section for every issue except one. 

In February 2022, it was press week and, because of a series of car-related issues, I was having trouble getting back up from Omaha, where I had attended my grandmother’s funeral. I was crying in my car and frantically texting my Editor-in-Chief Olivia Bertino about how I would do my pages when I got back to Sioux Falls, but that I wasn’t sure when or how I would get there. 

Olivia ended up doing my pages for me. Only then did I realize how much I had needed the help, and she covered me without my asking. I’ve never been good at accepting help, but this instance and several others throughout my time at the Mirror have helped me get better at it.

6. Everyone deserves an Ana McCabe.

She has been our sustainability columnist the entire time I’ve been the forum editor. This means that I have worked with her for three years, but we’ve only met in person maybe once. I think everyone should have the experience of getting to know someone through what they create the way I have through McCabe’s writing.

7. No opinion is too small to make a good opinion piece. 

My section has featured topics ranging from bowls in the dining hall to Stanley cups to Ed Sheeran. One of my favorite pieces of my own was one I wrote about how much I love Duolingo. 

While some stories spark campus-wide debates, these stories that seem silly let the section breathe. I’ve always wanted forum to be a platform that could house necessary debates about politics and social issues, but those are only part of the human experience. It is also littered with small gripes and pet peeves. If we didn’t give space to these, the section would feel inauthentic to me.

If you have ever written for my section or read my stories and thought about something in a new way, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I don’t have enough words to express how much this section has meant to me, and I’ve used 872 of them. But I suppose the only two that matter are thank you.