Growing Pains

Emily Bruzzo
Editor-in-Chief

We got hate mail the other day. I suppose it wasn’t so much hate mail as it was an impassioned critical analysis of our work. But one might argue that’s simply the politically correct way of saying we got hate mail the other day.

To protect the innocent, I shall refer to our critic as Gertrude; however, let it be known she will probably not approve of my chosen name for her. I have no doubt she’ll write me an email about it.

First, I would like to clarify that about 94.87 percent of the harsh words to which Gertrude subjected my poor inbox last week are accurate. Regardless of the unnecessary derision and the snarky attitude that would put my 90-year-old Italian grandmother to shame, Gertrude’s assessment of our paper is, in many ways, strikingly, and therefore, uncomfortably accurate.

Gertrude is right. “Oh god the pictures!” They look okay online, but are still too dark.” And, though I won’t go into detail about Gertrude’s opinions regarding the integrity of our content, “pile of garbage” is not necessarily an unfair metaphor.

I won’t sit here making excuses because 1) that would mean I’m pandering to the likes of Gertrude, and God knows my youthful arrogance cannot oblige me to do such a thing, and 2) I feel making excuses is for the unfortunate people in the world who think accountability is something accountants do.

I will say, though, to Gertrude and to every other reader who has approached me (and there have been quite a few of you) over the course of last week, we know there are problems. Trust me, readers, I am the first person who is aware of those problems. Those problems, in fact, make it so that my bed and I haven’t had any quality time recently. And thank God I bought an artificial plant, because Arthur, the fake ficus, would be dead right now if it were up to this newspaper.

I’m not complaining. I love this newspaper. I love it more than I’ve loved anything in a long time. But its got a long road ahead of it and I’ve never particularly liked walking.

Patience is a virtue. It’s a cliche my mom throws at me when I’m asking questions to which she can’t possibly know the answers. And that cliche has always frustrated me because it seems like the sorry saying is just a polite way of reminding you that your plans are crashing around you, and the shipwreck that is your ideas is just something you’re going to have to wait out.

I hate cliches. But our newspaper is teaching me that it’s the cliches in this world that are the hardest to overcome.

I’ve never been a particularly patient person. I want my vision for this paper to come to fruition immediately, but there are still too many things that need fixing. Before we can move on, there are still too many growing pains that we have to take Advil for right now.

Life is hard. It is not soft. It is not squishy. It is not slimy. Life is hard. And guess what readers, as many of you already have had the privilege of finding out, change is hard too. Change is life (hence why it’s not squishy or slimy or, well, you get the point).

This is a time of change for our university. And the newspaper that serves our university, in many ways, is mirroring that change.

Okay, so we’re feeling the pain of re-branding. Readers, our newspaper has gone unread and stacks have been left untouched for a long time now, so you might not realize the drastic changes we’re trying to make. You might not understand the obstacles one faces when starting a newspaper from scratch. But I do know that every single one of us appreciates how it feels to start over. And that’s what The Carolinian is trying to do. It’s trying to start over.

Last week, all 1,000 copies of this newspaper found their way into the hands of our community members. Readers, I don’t want us to regress because the copy you picked up “makes the whole school look bad,” as Gertrude likes to put it. I don’t want us to return to the days when readers were disappointed with us and, instead of ripping me a new one like Gertrude, they just choose to ignore the silly little student newspaper they can never remember the name of.

Gertrude should maybe seek counseling, but I appreciate her— and that’s genuine. I’d rather someone send me 261 words of contempt than no words at all.

Gertrude should maybe consider adopting a more compassionate tone in the future to convey her point, but she cares about collegiate journalism, and she understands what a lot of community members at UNCG struggle to understand: that student newspapers are vital to their college communities.

Gertrude gets it. You don’t feel that upset about something— you don’t send hate mail— unless you get it.

I’m not going to lie to you, readers. Our layout design will be shaky for a while. Some of our content will make the National Enquirer seem like a Pulitzer-worthy publication. But stick with us. Don’t put us down just because starting over sometimes looks like falling behind.

We’re already looking for ways to inspire dialogue, whether it’s through the debate on #BlackLivesMatter in our opinions pages this week, or through the controversial topics we plan on tackling in the future.

These are issues our generation must attempt to solve, and we want to talk about them.

Send me some hate mail