things i (really) love: print journalism

I've now been away from full-time journalism for 4 years. But in many ways it still feels like yesterday. Journalism—and print journalism in particular—has been so good to me. It was more than a job, more than a career. It felt like a calling. 

So I was particularly thrilled when Alive Editor Andy Downing asked me to write the Things We Love piece for the last print issue of Alive. (The paper is going digital-only and not, thank G-d, shuttering completely like many alt-weeklies.)

While writing this piece, I got stuck. Should I write only about print journalism? What about Alive specifically? Should I call out all the things I loved about Alive that Andy and team did differently from me? 

In the end, I kept it generic. Still not sure it was the right choice, but I figured Andy (being the editor he is) would cut whatever I wrote about him and the staff.

To make up for my neglect, I'll pick out three changes to Alive (post-me) that make me proud (in no particular order). 

EMBRACING COLUMBUS' DIVERSITY
Adding columnists like Scott Woods' The Other Columbus and Joy Ellison's Rainbow Rant was a long time coming. I pushed for similar columnists but was turned down by my boss who was concerned the moves would be mere lip service. And to a point he was right. What Andy's done here is not just give column inches to two marginalized communities in need of a voice, but he also went further—upping the paper's overall coverage of these communities. 

FEARLESS REPORTING
Andy and staff have not only covered tough, challenging topics. They've done so when no one else was willing too. And at times, at great personal peril. 

REGULAR COMICS FEATURE
Yes, I started a local comics feature (Sketch in the City, rip). But like everything else here, Andy and staff took something previously done and made it better. Ignatz award-winning cartoonist Noah Van Sciver's "The Introvert's Corner" is top-notch.