Viewing the cracks in columns

Sunday, June 9, 1996

So, this is what a graduation column is like. Not bad, but as I
look around, I just can’t figure out what I’m doing in here. I
recall asking my editor what the hell I was supposed to do with
this space once I got inside and he said, "Say whatever you want.
Don’t you have anything you want to say, as you?"

OK, so here’s the game plan. As a departing senior and Daily
Bruin staff member, I get this space to speak to you as me. Either
this is to serve as a way for you to know something about the
person who wrote some of the articles you read over the year (OK,
sometimes read … read once? … skimmed … uh, glanced over? …
come on, be nice, it’s my column), or this is to give me a space to
vent the personality and opinions that I have sacrificed and
suppressed so selflessly for journalistic integrity. There are some
problems here.

The concept of a graduation column is attractive for news
writers because it gives them license to be columnists, a heretical
idea in the everyday paper. And this format is equally compelling
for readers because it reinforces confidence that regular news
articles are not columns.

But what drudgery and boredom this spells for the reporter and
the reader both! What contempt it forces on each toward the other!
It is tempting to want the "eyes" without the "I" in reporting ,
but this is not only folly, it is disaster.

If anything was ever written in an unbiased manner, it certainly
wasn’t worth reading. The senseless opposition between objective
and biased needs to be annihilated. That is what good writing
does.

This is my chance to tell you what I really think. I wish
somebody would have told me that I wasn’t supposed to do that in my
articles. Oh, wait, somebody did tell me, but I did it anyway.

The existence of these columns is troubling because they support
the notion that expressing a personal voice is the exception in
journalism, reserved for occasions like this. The only reason I
should talk to you as me now would be because I have been prevented
from doing that all year. But, that has not been the case.

So, I’m not really sure what to do in here. The other reason why
I might be here hanging out in this space is possibly even uglier.
The cracks are very visible on these walls. Because I am a staff
member at the paper, I receive this space to tell you what I have
come to know being in my position. My position is not one of
intrinsic insight, only proximity to the mechanism that distributes
the paper.

I cannot imagine why we should ask you to entertain us on the
pulpit. Newspapers ask a lot of the readers on a daily basis, but
whenever they begin to talk about themselves it seems
embarrassingly incestuous; it asks too much.

The spectacle of news writers navigating the nightmare of their
narcissism and nostalgia seems especially tactless. The temptation
is clear. Who wouldn’t want the chance to express themselves on
their terms, outside of confining journalistic formulas? But the
fact that this is done within a journalistic framework bespeaks not
only a problem of credibility with the reader, but a problem of
identity for the staff.

The monolithic voice of journalism is tough to deal with, for
both readers and writers. But the problem is not helped by
contriving avenues to vent creativity such as these columns. They
seem to be a lullaby, encouraging both readers and writers to
withdraw their creativity and cognition from the process of
everyday journalism.

Writers need to be aware that following a conventional style
doesn’t mean effacing their identity. And readers need to realize
that this kind of writing isn’t threatening, even in the guise of
objective journalism.

So, I could tell you about my experience and go on about what
I’ve learned and observed. But I can’t figure out why either of us
would want that. For my regrets, I would expect the admonishment
that the choices were mine, and for my victories I would expect
harsher reprimands for dragging them out for display. And in the
end, it seems I have a more or less equal ratio of both.

And this is a strange process, this tallying up of experiences
at the end of a contained period of time, this ritualized
evaluation and recollection. I have begun to go through the
"lasts;" the last time I do this or that in a particular context.
It’s a process of making life petrified for your memories and it
feels uneasy in the comfort. But to be conscious of the "last" robs
it of its authenticity, so I really went through my "lasts" a while
ago, when I didn’t realize their significance as markers of
nostalgia.

Perched precariously on the precipice of my experience at UCLA,
I am reluctant to pass judgement. In the middle of the experience
or with substantial distance, critical observations can come
naturally. But from this fragile window of detaching, the panic to
secure nostalgia renders the attempt artificial and contrived.

Howerton is a graduating history student and a 1995-96 news
staff writer.