For those that do not know me, my name is Thomas Coppola, otherwise known as Tommy, and I am the new Editor-in-Chief for The Fairfield Mirror!
I just wanted to take a moment to address a letter to myself that I wrote a year ago in this very column. For context, I wrote this “letter to my future self” when I took on the role of Managing Editor. I’m not going to reproduce the entire piece, but I’ll explain my thoughts on the highlights.
For starters, I congratulated myself and then promptly asked myself some questions:
What have you accomplished? Have you continued to make The Mirror a more transparent and responsible voice for the students? Have you held yourself to the highest standards of student journalism as possible?
I have accomplished a whole year as the Managing Editor, elevating my skills in investigative journalism and finding my footing in a constantly moving environment. I hope I have made The Mirror as good as it can be, and in my journalistic efforts, I have had the chance to write about the new Leo D. Mahoney Arena, construction on Regis West and much more. I also asked myself about the Sports section, which I previously was the editor for, and was curious as to what it looks like now. It looks way cooler now than it did when I was running it, for the record.
I also asked myself how I’d manage the role (no pun intended) with the new, higher workload of reading every article that comes in, managing the radio show and social media accounts and more. I think I handled it well, I hope, and in my current role, I want to see the evolution of all of those things continually. Although I told myself that “change is scary sometimes,” I think I handled that change with some grace, and hopefully, in my new role, I’ll be able to do the same.
Looking more toward the future, I’m excited to see what we’re able to do this new year. I think it will be exciting to see where the content of the paper goes and what direction our style turns.
With that being said, I’ll treat this second part almost as another letter to myself once my time with The Mirror is up next year. My hope is that the quality of journalism and integrity will continue to rise, and I really look forward to people noticing this. If future me is reading this, I hope that the semesters to come are successful and that the vision for The Mirror is executed to its greatest potential.
As Editor-in-Chief, I want to inspire students and members of the campus community to challenge themselves in their abilities by writing for us at The Mirror. The diversity of thoughts, opinions, ideas and viewpoints is possibly the most valuable and important part of the entire process of publishing new issues of The Mirror each week, and the content we produce could not function without the hard work of all of our contributing writers and staff!
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