Farewell Column: Goodbye, DTH. Thanks for the ride.
By Adrian Tillman | May 1"Putting dozens of college students in a room together for hours on end guarantees you’ll hear some great music — some you know, some you’ve never heard of before."
"Putting dozens of college students in a room together for hours on end guarantees you’ll hear some great music — some you know, some you’ve never heard of before."
"I never liked farewell columns when I was at The Daily Tar Heel. They always seemed too self indulgent — no offense to my wonderful peers that have written plenty of these over the years — considering that most of our readers don’t know or care about who is producing the news they read."
"The job hasn’t been perfect, and as my friends know, my hours are irregular and my weekends have been filled with sports — but I wouldn’t change it for the world."
"Everyone in the DTH office has taught me something. I barely knew how to get to the office before I was an editor, and now walking in feels like home."
"The very structure of The Daily Tar Heel makes it hard to actually be part of this newsroom if you don’t have the financial stability to handle below-average pay for the sake of altruistic, hard-earned journalism experience. I can count on one hand the amount of DTH editors over my two years that could relate to my situation."
"To all my DTH friends and family, thank you for being a part of my neighborhood."
"The time I spent in the newsroom all these days, weeks and lives wasn’t just for the paper. It was for them. I was spending time with my friends. With my family."
"And while some days in news — well, actually a lot of days — are long and tiresome, working with many talented and wonderful people at the DTH has given me hope for the future of journalism and the world."
"I love the DTH so much that I wanted to let it break me. If we’re being honest, I might have let it do that already."
"I’m the first to leave every party I go to. My bed and I have a passionate affair that I refuse to cut short in the name of social graces. I always know when to say my goodbyes. And while I’m not a senior, it’s time I say goodbye to The Daily Tar Heel."
"The Daily Tar Heel has made me endlessly grateful for mornings. The 3 a.m. variety. "
"So, when the opportunity arose, I applied to become the diversity, equity and inclusion chairperson at the paper. I didn’t seek the position assuming I could rewrite the DTH’s legacy in one to two years. (After all, it is the campus paper of a University built by slaves.) Instead, I sought the position because I felt like I would at least be honest with the newsroom about its issues, if nothing else."
"When I connect with people — especially in the journalism world — I find those connections unbreakable. There’s some special sauce that we all share that makes us crazy enough to enjoy working insane hours and Slacking during class – and I think that sauce is delicious."
"Thank you for teaching me how to be vulnerable and giving me the grace to do so. Thank you for teaching me that sometimes, the hardest things are the most worthwhile. Thank you for believing in me the times I struggled to believe in myself."
"Yet another feeling is purpose. The DTH gave me a chance to be a part of something bigger than myself — a chance to feel like I’ve served our community in some small way by simply helping to vet stories for inaccuracies and good-ol’ AP style."
"But the DTH has constantly served as a place where it’s okay that I’m still learning. We all are. It’s okay to be a little stressed, a little messy and a little bit closer to being a grown-up child than an adult."
"I never would’ve made the decision to pursue journalism without the people I worked with. I doubt I would’ve even applied for that job. The DTH office isn’t redeemed by its comforting and peaceful energy, nor its snack selection. It’s redeemed by the people inside it."
"To the people close to me, to Chapel Hill and to a student newspaper of a supposedly 'dying' industry, thank you for being 'so love' and helping little Hunter make the most of his dream."
"We fell down a lot, and we also fought like hell to get back up. To get back to the good parts — the ones that make your heart feel light, right before the drop and the scream and the hands in the air."
"It can feel like life or death sometimes, but at the end of the day, it’s not your job to fix all of the DTH’s issues. Take the best things you can from it and hold those experiences close — I know I will."