Editorial

Fri, 29 May 2009 19:55:54 GMT

By Senior Editors

photo courtesy of Crotalus

Seniors grow up as they say good bye Printing a newspaper appears to be a simple process. Write, edit, publish. To an outsider looking in, it is like a theater play; a performance of skill that is translated into a visual form that all can enjoy. Little do many realize that that single act of elaborate dramatics was the result of several months worth of rehearsals, script readings and costume malfunctions. Being responsible for the publication that ends up in the hands of the student body every month or so, is very similar to such a method because, like the actors who spend so long perfecting their characters, we find that all of the work is worth watching our audience’s initial reaction to what is presented to them. Let’s just say it makes the coffee in our coffeemaker smell much sweeter in the mornings. This year, The Viper Vibe felt, for the first time, the asphyxiating pain of the struggling economy as its publishing was reduced from eight times a year to four. No academic year has had such a drastic cut in production; one that made our work even more challenging as we struggled to remain a conspicuous presence in the lives of the students we’re responsible for informing. The tangibility of printed paper, it seems, is the only way one can fully grasp the attention of a high school teenager at Varela, whose contact with the news world never bypasses that of the morning announcements. Yet what happened to our paper is only a small microcosm of what is continually happening to newspaper publications across the nation. Money has begun to circulate less in the direction of the print companies and institutions like ‘The Chicago Tribune,’ ‘The New York Times,’ and other local papers, filing for bankruptcy; many settling on cutting back on its writers, the life source that constantly dwindles in number through the years. Despite everything, we were introduced to the growing medium that, while doing little to help the prospects of print newspapers, is now working to save journalism as a whole from becoming a faint memory among the technological generation of the 21st century; the Internet. The world of New Media opened doors for us at The Vibe, along with the rest of the Communications Academy, as Vipervoice.com was created as a separate means of reaching out to our audience. Now, we not only write, but we blog, podcast, tweet, and upload our content to the web for the rest of the world to see and enjoy. The Viper Vibe grew up. And so did we. The staff’s seniors have seen their fair share of typos and deadlines. Many of us began as recipients of the Newbie award duing our first years. Throughout our time reporting the news, we’ve seen a melted hard drive that erased an entire issue, Ms. Cardenas’ deadline meltdowns, Alexis’ being sent to the clinic twice for tripping on the floor and the very first Mr. Varela turn into a Sports Editor with Senioritis. Now our time is done and we must make way for the new generation of writers. So like the seven other staffs that came before us, we, the seniors of The Viper Vibe will take our last bow for our audience. The experiences that lie before us in the real world will never compare to the friendships, laughs and lessons learned when we were together as a family. Years after today, we shall look back at our high school days and remember that even though we still radiate the same differences, we all at one point had a common goal; a similar light at the end of the tunnel. We wanted to write. We wanted to make an impact. We wanted to be heard. And we did it all.