If you've been around me recently, you probably know that I've been making my way through the physical McGill Daily archives. These are big black books that cover my entire lap as I riffle through them. The reading is not thorough - I read headlines and the articles that interest me, mainly ones concerning SSMU, McGill politics, and a rich history of takes on queerness (very progressive takes, too! The Daily explores queerness with a nuance and complexity that most cishet adults in 2023 can't fathom). The physical archives start at 2008-2009 and go up until 2018-2019. Although I fell short of my promise to finish this side project by today, I've now gone through all but the turbulent year of Tojiboeva's presidency.
The experience has been strangely emotional. Almost always I stay in the office to read the archives. I feel the ghosts of the people who laboured away at these articles, occupying the same space as me, with the same computers and dictionary. The office space has changed a few times, but still - I feel the potential of this empty room.
When onboarding myself to the Daily editorial board, I read through the exit reports of my predecessors. Many were an inexorable entwinement of the personal and professional. It seems impossible to distance oneself from journalism. I get it - everything I write is personal, no matter the nature. And the nature of articles written and edited tend to be very human. In editorial board, too, we try to talk about things that matter. We go through the collective reaction of anger and grief in the face of corruption and apathy. We want the world to be better. We clumsily stab into the dark in our opinions. We apologize frequently and make mistakes.
The articles transport me to another time, but I am not on this journey with them. Although I mostly read the archives in chronological order, I know information that these writers and editors don't. I wince at the excited mention of executives who will later be accused of sexual misconduct. I grimace, in sympathy and humour, at the tone-deaf editorial piece that editors will spend the following week agonizing over for hours before issuing a statement. I reconize names from the history of internal documents and minute meetings: I recall the tensions that are known only to me. I revell in the secret of it. I revell in knowing this part of the past, that no one else cares about right now, but that 12 people cared about deeply. The feeling makes me feel among community, and makes me feel alone. They were together in the madness of caring too much. I am alone in an empty office. On average, the physical archives are shrinking. The campus changes. Professors and administrators stop writing letters to the editors - direct action seems to get less press. Then there's the absurdity of knowing dozens of facts about a year in the life of a McGillian, ten years ago. In some of the archives, the pages are still stuck together from printing. I am the first person to pry them open. I will probably be the only person for a while to come.
It's in to hate student newspapers. I have more ammunition than most to ridicule them. I've found circular meeting minutes, personal conflicts, mistakes varying from small to great. I know people have suffered from some articles. I know the writers have too. I've read some generally bad articles. Still, I've found that no one on campus dislikes the Daily for these reasons. They dislike the Daily because it publishes "social justice" pieces before they become socially acceptable. They dislike the Daily because it allows contributors to maintain an awkward, excited writing style in opinion pieces. They dislike the Daily because they've decided, without any knowlegde or ral thought, what is and isn't journalistic due process. They dislike the Daily because the people who become journalists are the same awkward teenagers who try too hard and are bullied because of it.
I feel close to these writers. I feel their blood, sweat, and tears on these pages. I have the evidence. I have thousands and thousands of words of meeting minutes, exit reports, reflections, articles, editorials, corrections, comics. I have confessions of trauma, identity, and personal testimony in these papers. I have great pieces of art and what feels like pieces of a soul. I am okay to be part of the Daily, even if that comes with a plummeting social status. This is important.