A get together, to tear it apart

Last night was the WLUSP end-of-year dinner, and it turned out to be pretty cool. Got some free drinks, ate some surprisingly good food (considering it was held in a pseudo strip club) and talked a lot of shop with my colleagues over how they thought the year went. I had a speech that droned on and on, but that I was pretty proud of. Oh, and a deserving Mike Brown won Cordie of the Year. If that wasn't enough to put me in a good mood for the night, my good friend Scott announced he's coming home early from teaching in South Korea, so he'll be around in the summer, which is great because one, I get to see him about six months earlier than I expected, and two, we can probably salvage a trip up to his cottage, which has been a perennial summertime sojourn that always proves fun.

Anyway, the whole point of this was to post my speech, as a few people last night asked for the text version:

Last year, at around this time, my good friend and brother-dawg, photo manager Jordan Jocius, said something that’s resonated with me throughout this entire year.

Following Anthony’s election, or rather, acclamation as president, and after our crack Editorial Board had been selected, he told me that he thought we had the potential to have “the best year in the history of the Cord.” I was thinking the same thing to myself, but understandably, had a few doubts as to whether or not I could set the highest bar the paper had seen in over 80 years of student journalism. Hearing Jordan say it, though, gave me the belief that it could really happen, and I challenged my editors, at our very first board meeting, to do exactly that. They, along with all of the writers, photographers, artists, production assistants, copy editors, managers, and yes, even administrators, have made that daunting task a reality.

And even though we made our fair share mistakes, misprints and typos, for me, we fulfilled that great potential we all knew we had.

We were the most prolific Ed. Board in recent memory if not in the entire history of the paper, coming out with a staggering 32 issues over the course of the year, including four special editions. With the help of our amazing graphics and photography team, we’ve had the most visually stunning edition of the Cord I’ve ever laid eyes on. With our over-qualified administration, we’ve had the best-managed and administered Student Publications I’ve ever witnessed. Thanks to the efforts of Jason Shim, the Cord finally got its website up and running, and pretty good one at that. And with the help of our writers, copy editors and distribution manager, we’ve increased circulation by over 30 percent this year.

But now that it’s all over, even though it hasn’t come close to sinking in yet, I owe everyone who worked on making the paper the terrific success that it was, a huge, prolonged, emotional and drawn-out thank you.

But before I get teared up saying goodbye to my beloved editors, I need to thank the unsung heroes who don’t get shout outs every week.

At the top of that list is writers. You toil, many of you every publishing week, to provide the essential building block of the newspaper that you get precious little credit for. We edit your work, decide what headlines go with it and sometimes even cut entire articles from the paper. You’re overworked and underappreciated, and for that I owe all of you a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for giving us the raw literary materials to make the paper from week to week. While many of you missed deadlines and wrote over or under your word count, I always looked forward to editing your articles, to see what little piece of brilliance you were trying to share with the Laurier community on any given week.

Copy editors, as well, get far too little credit for what they do. For a little spot in the masthead, you come in every week and fix the thousands, yes thousands, of little mistakes that we make on a weekly basis. You work long hours concerned with the minutiae of the English language, and make me look like a much better editor in the process. So, to all the comma splices, subject/verb disagreements and spelling mistakes you corrected, I thank you for fixing each and every one of them. And Arla, thanks for staying late each and every week. To come into the job with no ‘managerial’ experience, I didn’t really know what to expect, but your dedication and work ethic are without question.

Next are photographers. As much as writing and print journalism is a craft, photography is an art, and I salute all of the artists in the room tonight. If a picture is worth 1000 words, you wrote volumes in this year’s Cord. While the history of the Cord has been concerned mostly with words, your images were so good this year that they’ve changed the culture of the newspaper. With your professionalism and dedication to telling stories through pictures, you’ve been some of the best, if more subtle, storytellers that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Jordan: you’ve meant so much to the organization this year from boosting ad sales to rearranging the office to being the best damn team-builder an EIC could ever want. Plus you took some pretty amazing pictures from time to time. You better go into photojournalism or I’ll be seriously pissed. I can always imagine looking at some amazing photo in a newspaper someday and seeing your name underneath it. And Sydney, you are, exponentially, the best cook/host/all-around person to ever take photos for WLUSP. I’ll never forget the board game parties or your delicious quesadillas.

Last, and certainly least, on my pre-Ed. Board list, I have to thank the administration for a lot of things this year. Primarily, I owe you a debt of gratitude for really challenging me, to keep my sanity throughout the year. But in all seriousness, Anthony has been the president that WLUSP has needed for some time now. Though you thoroughly annoyed, pestered and antagonized me at times, your unfailing support for the editorial board, your dedication to not fucking with content and your vision for the organization made you the publisher that every editor should have. Starting from the top-down, you set the example for all of your underlings to follow. Fraser, same goes for you. You were overqualified for your job, but you lived up to my unrealistically high expectations. You tortured me with budgets and financial statements and challenged me to justify every last one of my purchases, but when push came to shove, as it sometimes did, you were more than generous in opening WLUSP’s coffers to give The Cord the resources we needed to do our jobs.

Next is Angela Foster, my office buddy and ‘mom away from mom’. Now, sharing an office in the cubby hole we call the WLUSP office would be a challenge for anyone, but I can’t imagine doing it with any other spunky British dame other than Angela. Her grace under fire and dedication to WLUSP hold the organization together. Us transient students come and go, but Angela is the constant that stabilizes everything from year to year. Plus, you know she fits right in with the Cord staff, because she likes to push people’s buttons when they’re mad at her. Along with Angela is Leo, roommate and soccer fan par excellence, who got up early, against his body’s strongest urgings to deliver the paper with Angela every publishing week. It’s a part of the Cord’s process that not too many people consider, but it’s absolutely vital and you took care of business. I’m sure we’ll be discussing the intricacies of distribution and circulation when we hit Germany for the World Cup this summer. Keeping on the theme of Asian men who are cool is Jason Shim, the man behind the Cord’s website and the lovely photomosaics I used on the cover of the latest Cord and WLU’er. You are truly a virtuoso; I don’t know anyone else who can sell jumping beans and stamp money with advertising to fund a trip to Antarctica, then be a superstar in the WLU/UW apprentice and then propose to ride a bike all the way across Canada for charity. For doing all the tedious work of posting articles to website and being an all-around brilliant, yet humble guy, I thank you for all the good work you’ve done for The Cord this year. And last, but surely not least this time, is Regan Walsh, who’s the only other person in the organization, save Bryn, that hates the software and hardware we use in the office as much as I do. But you weathered every shitstorm the fileserver and Quark could throw at you, and made sure we had the tools at our disposal to get ‘er done.

And speaking of getting done, I now turn my attention to my dear editors, whom I’ve repeatedly thanked over the year, but to whom no amount of gratitude can convey how much I owe them and cherish their company. Though it sounds like a back-handed compliment, the thing I’m most proud of is that none of you quit. In past years, there’s always been some attrition amongst the editors, but this year, cohesion reigned supreme. It’s been a growing trend over my time here that Ed. Board’s have grown closer and closer, but this year, as some unmentionable events on a certain Brick Brewery tour so subtly illustrated, we were more of a family than an Ed. Board, and a sexy, slightly incestuous family at that. While Maclean’s magazine recently let Canada know just how ‘Hot’ this year’s Cord Weekly was, earlier in the year a former editor-in-chief called us the ‘hottest ed board of all-time’, and I can’t say that I disagree. But attractive as it was, it was the talents of the individual editors, skills that could make anyone feel modest, that impressed me the most, and it was how we stuck together, through some unbelievably hard times, that I’ll never forget.

Starting in chronological order, I want to holla at Bryn. Since serving on the 2002-03 Ed Board with him when he was a hotshot News Editor in his first year, we’ve been united in our disdain for the Global Studies program, our love of world affairs and our similar views on what student journalism should be. Along the way, we’ve disagreed about pretty much everything else, but never about the amount respect we’ve had for one another. As you go off to continue your education and travel the world, know that one, I’m jealous, and two, that you better keep in touch because I’ll always need a sparring partner that can argue about the Maple Leaf’s long-term stability and the intricacies of global culture in the same breath.

The next person I came across was Carly. Though I remember little of her as a production assistant, who could forget that memorable night almost four years ago when I proclaimed her to be “OK” time after merciless time in the infamous “Carly’s OK” chant. Thankfully, since making fun of her ability to drink she’s proven me wrong about a lot of things, but I was always right that she’s a lot more than OK. She’s the older sister who’s actually younger than me that I never had, a stoic, demure matriarch, a great roommate and a better friend. Plus, she introduced WLUSP to Ollie, who I think became our first-ever Cord mascot, which is pretty fabulous. I wish her and ‘my little gentleman’ well in Ottawa with their new job, and until I hear otherwise, am assuming you’ll be moving back to Waterloo immediately after.

Following Carly, one of my fellow production assistants three years ago was ‘Pril. Though I didn’t really get to know her until our trip to Edmonton last year, since then she’s been one my closest confidants at the paper. If she does half the job with the entire paper next year as she did for the Special Projects section this year, it’ll be in good shape. I look forward to working with you next year, and seeing you become the first-ever, I think, Mrs. EIC.

Though he was just in high school at the time, Dan Polischuk is next on my list. Seeing Dan’s transformation from a fresh-faced intern to a mature, bearded editor has been a privilege to watch, and I’m glad I could play a role in it as his editor, friend and fellow soccer buddy this year. And who could talk about Dan without mentioning Adrian, your partner, friend and hipster extraordinaire. Adrian, you were the yang to Dan’s ying, and it was a joy for an editor to watch such a great relationship develop between two of you. Throughout the year you probably wrote the most words for the paper out of anyone, but you certainly had quality to along with your impressive quantity.

Next is Kris Cote, who was always a better history student than me, so much so that I asked him to be my Cord Historian. Though he couldn’t be here tonight, I wish him well on his adventure to grad school out East.

Though it’s starting to get a little hazy now, I think Michelle is next. Though I hated laying out her features last year, she’s given me much more joy in her role as Stud Life editor this year, winning my praise for being the most improved editor for a strong second-half showing to the year. But all year long, she brought a much-needed urban conservative outlook that balanced out the ed. Board and overcame some serious personal challenges, for which I’ll be forever impressed by.

Blair, I think, is who I met next. She’s the only person I know to have an onomatopoeia in her name and who will insult and praise you in the same sentence. She was the most difficult editor to work with by a landslide, and I ceaselessly fought with her over the most minute of editorial tweaks to her section. Sadly, the more we fought, the better the feature, and judging by your work over the year, we fought an awful lot. I know you’ll do well with Opinion next year, but the part that pains me about that statement is that I know it will take a lot more fighting to do so. But I think we’re both up to the challenge.

Mike Brown. Two words that reek of sports, thriftiness and dedication. This man travelled far and wide covering his beloved varsity teams, sacrificing school, sleep and eating well in the process. But he never sacrificed the quality of section or his dry-as-a-bone humour, which kept the newspaper full of great sports coverage and everyone on their guard in case Mike got to sarcastically correct you about anything.

The last of my editors I met before their interview was Emilie, who’s quietly gone about changing the culture of the paper with her outstanding artwork. Wait, did I say quietly? Regardless of her volume, even though she says I put a lot of myself into the paper, I think she puts even more of herself into her art, which is probably why I like it so much and is so important to the quality of the paper.

Second-last is Alex, who I hired to give me fashion tips and expand my vocabulary. Well, that’s a lie, I hired him to be a good A&E editor, but he’s dressed so well and been so eloquent that I picked up a bit more than I bargained for in the process. He also was the most adept at meeting deadline on a weekly basis, and I thank him for being the only editor, save Tony, to come remotely close to doing so.

Speaking of which, I’ve finally come to Tony, or Zony as he’s come to be known in recent days. He has as many admirable personality traits as he does nicknames, and as I said in this issue’s shout outs, I’m proud to induct him into the International Editor’s Alumni club. In addition to being a fellow Cobourgian, Tony keeps you on your toes with his irreverent humour and always found interesting international stories that fell under the radar of the bigger newspapers.

Though I’ve probably forgotten a few people along the way, thanks to anyone I haven’t mentioned for making The Cord’s 80^th year, in my mind at least, the best.

But enough reminiscing over the past, for the rest of tonight and at the Carly’s OK party, let’s celebrate this swansong, our ‘Uno mas,’ the completion of what we set out to do; knowing that for at least this one moment in time, fleeting as it may be, we were the best.

Thank you.