Best Issue Yet

(News section, pages 1 and 3, PDF. Full paper, pages 1, 3-8, PDF.)

I have to say, this week’s Thorn was the best of year thus far. We may get a lotof flaq for our story on the administration, and unfortunately it will probably hit Luke hardest (hence his concern as both writer and a co-editor-in-chief). But holy hell if this wasn’t the most fun, interesting, and pertinent issue I’ve poured energy into putting together. I did the fun gun layout on page 3 (including a picture of a damned sexy Glock), shook up the front page a little, and had three friggin’ awesome stories. I spent the early part of the evening being allowed to play mommy boss-lady, to some extent—making sure everyone had what they needed and could work without trouble. It went well.

Even editing Luke’s story on the administration went well, particularly once we reestablished a pecking order. Writers cannot be editors on first and second drafts; there’s too much attachment. They should be permitted to be asked questions for clarification, but not to edit, or else we find ourselves spending a half-hour on a single, two-sentence paragraph. Writer submits, it should go to the copy editor. Copy editor of the night for this story was Sexy Short Stuff. He needed to edit it without interference from any of us, but instead we tried a group-thing that turned into a fiasco because, quite frankly, Short Stuff enjoys talking over Bob and frequently isn’t patient enough to hear him out.

Finally things just got ridiculous and I had to put my foot down. Short Stuff put in his edits, then it went to me as News Editor, then it went to Bob as EIC. At the end, Luke was allowed to give it a once-over to make sure his intent was still there and the facts were correct.

Valuable lesson there. An expensive one, too, because I didn’t get to bed until 04:00.There’s something about the second half of the year that makes the Thorn much, much better, though. Our stories become more “important” or hard-hitting, our layout comes together, our team matures and comes together. I don’t know. Last night was awesome. The week before was good. This is what I signed up for. Take the bad with the good, I know, but I feel like we’ve (I’ve) earned a shit-ton of good for all the bad of earlier this year.

Edit: Best issue except for the fact that I cut Angela’s story off mid-sentence. Fuck.