Final Word

Spring 2011 was the semester that didn’t go according to plan.

A flood at the FreeP office and the death of Osama bin Laden are the bookends to my stint as EIC. Only a plumber or a CIA agent could have seen those things coming, and we didn’t have of any them on staff those nights, unfortunately. But if seeing my newsroom covered in an inch of water or witnessing 4,000 students spontaneously march down Commonwealth Avenue in the middle of the night has taught me anything, it’s that things won’t always go the way you expected them to. The best laid plans of an editor can and will be thrown into that maelstrom that is the news business at a moment’s notice, and all you can do is hope that you’re mentally prepared to take on what comes next.

Of course, I had plenty of ideas about how my time at the top would go. I was going to change things around here, lead this newspaper into the future and be the greatest editor-in-chief of all time! Then, with some help from that flood in our second week of production, I came back to reality. I realized I had a more important job to do than stroke my own ego. That job was making sure the newspaper showed up in stands across campus day after day, even if that meant putting things I wanted to accomplish on hold. That document titled “Goals for FreeP next semester” has sat unopened on my desktop since January.

But unfulfilled aspirations aren’t going to be the things that I remember best from this semester. My memories of the FreeP are reserved for the friends I’ve made among the hardest working group of students on campus. Life at this newspaper isn’t easy. I’ve gotten four hours of sleep in the last two days. I’ve got gray hairs 21 years too soon. The last four months have been more difficult then I ever could have imagined, but the amazing people on my staff this semester made it all that much more bearable.

All that work has made me learn a lot about this profession I plan to enter after graduation. The lesson that will stick with me is the one that has left me most humbled. For as good a reporter as I might consider myself to be, the best stories still come from being a little lucky sometimes. Like having-a-rally-start-right-outside-your-front-door lucky. At 10 p.m. on May 1, I wouldn’t have bet money that later on that night I’d be running all the way from Kenmore Sqaure to the Boston Common, frantically writing down quotes from flag-waving, homework-avoiding students. But that’s the inherent beauty of covering the news: you never know what moment in history you’re going to get to experience next.

Now, get to work.

-Josh Cain

The Daily Free Press

Editor-in-Chief Spring 2011