Monday, February 23, 2009

Lessons From Last Week

Writing is one addiction I cannot abnegate for life. Last week turned out to be monumental, and it would be remiss if I did not reflect on all that I learned here.
From Black Sand Journal

On Wednesday night, a radical student group called "Take Back NYU!" barricaded itself inside the cafeteria of the NYU student center with a list of 13 demands. What started out as some wholesome dancing and poster painting turned into a highly contentious debate on influence and effects of student protest by the time day broke on Thursday. Property was damaged, a security guard suffered injuries, two female sophomores walked around topless in the middle of the day and at night two males were arrested as NYPD cops and cars lined the outside of the occupied building.
From Black Sand Journal
And I got to cover it all for NYU Local, a student run blog I've been writing for since the start of the semester. My section editor had the forethought and enterprise to place himself inside the barricaded area with a camcorder and laptop to document the entire occupation from the inside, and update his coverage on the NYU Local site every few minutes. NYU students, faculty and administrators followed NYU Local to get a clue about what was going on. The rest of us ran around taking/acquiring photos, interviewing people, and publishing all the information we could with as short as a two hour turn over. We blew the "official" school news source out of the fucking water. You can read my summary of the ordeal here.
From Black Sand Journal
Of course, TBYNU! decided to gift me the most significant journalism experience of my life thus far the day before an economics midterm. I cabbed it home from the student center at 2AM - roughly 9 hours before my exam - with ice blocks for hands and a feeling of utter exhilaration. I found out later NYU Local received half a million page views over the course of the occupation and our coverage was linked by The New York Times, Gothamist, The Village Voice, Gawker and New York Magazine. It blew my fucking mind to be a part of something so exceptional - something that so many people followed.
From Black Sand Journal
I had a moment of clarity. I want to be a journalist because it makes me feel alive. I absolutely loved working with the rest of the NYU Local staff, who are a group of incredibly witty and talented writers. I was able to push all my personal tribulations to the back of my mind in order to get the story out as quickly as I could. Paradoxically, this restless journalism gave me the patience I required to properly comprehend the more unpleasant issues I'm currently facing.

I can report on the circumstances, but I cannot rectify them. I'm a much happier person for acknowledging and accepting my situation than I would be hopelessly trying to alter it. I know which causes are worth the fight, but I'm not about to needlessly barricade myself in regret.

Edit: Just wanted to add, despite the fact somebody in the comments section of my TBNYU! summary called me an "illiterate douchebag," I have never felt more at ease with who I am, as a journalist and a person.

2 comments:

indi said...

Interesting posting. Somewhat retarded posting. Setting up a student committee to override financial decisions? Funding Gaza and banning Coca Cola. WTF?

Suri said...

TBNYU! just ended up becoming a joke. They demanded far too many things that most NYU kids didn't care about. Budget disclosure? Hell yes. Making our library public? WTF!

But their protest made the news blog I work for explode overnight. In three days we got half a million page views. Of course we won't retain even 10% of those readers, but it still gave NYU Local a much higher profile and tons more respect.