To Listen, To Learn, To Speak

“Therefore he sent me to teach thee these things: to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.”—Homer, The Iliad, Book IX, line 443

I was never the best reporter at Spec—Erin gets that honor—nor was I the best writer. It took me a full year to learn journalistic form while others picked it up in their first days, and early on I made a handful of journalistic gaffes for which I probably should have been fired.

But by fall of my sophomore year I had overcome much of this and had become the guy to whom Spec turned to turn around 500 words in three hours. Much to my parents’ chagrin, I can’t remember turning down a story, writing four or five per week through sophomore year. I could be relied upon to turn around good, usable copy on deadline that required little editing. I was solid and eager—two indispensable traits for journalists in an office that doesn’t pay.

Writing fast is a useful skill—I wrote at least one 10-page paper in under two hours this semester—and I can’t remember the last time I had trouble writing something for Spec, though this piece is killing me. But in the end, it is a secretarial trait, a commodity skill that, while increasingly necessary, is as teachable as it is common. What makes great journalists—what sets Jimmy, Erin, Leora, John, Amanda, Kate, and the other incredible Speccies who will drive the field in the coming decades apart from the stenographers—is their ability to write both quickly and compellingly. They don’t just fill column inches and relay information; they tell stories in the traditional sense. And I didn’t.

Storytelling can’t be taught in the traditional way with handouts and PowerPoints; rather, it must be acquired, absorbed from those who already know the art. For me, my teachers were my friends on the paper, my classrooms were the fluorescently-lit Spec office and the Corsendonk-laden tables of the Abbey Pub. There, I learned the cadence of the thing—how to crescendo and where to pause, the power of a good lead and the importance of word choice. The result, as my aunt told me, is that I now speak in full paragraphs. It might be the most important thing I learned at Columbia.

But it was only half the battle. No journalist—nor anyone else—can tell a story where one doesn’t exist. Storytelling is a tool like any other, useless in isolation, relying on other material to serve its purpose. One needs a story to tell. Thus, we must be two things at once—as described in the text of my first Lit Hum assignment, each of us must be “both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.”

Fortunately, I have some incredible stories from my time at Columbia. Some were provided through my time at Spec: after one night at the Abbey, I found myself rushing into a 200 person riot where the police dared not go, grabbing a flyer from a nearby streetlamp to take notes. I interviewed Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, spoke to a former Nazi and a Holocaust survivor, covered Bill Clinton, John Ashcroft, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and ended up reprinted in the New York Times.

These were all extraordinary events, and there are dozens more. But the best stories weren’t assigned. They arose from spontaneous adventures involving afternoons at City Hall, late nights in the Central Park Ramble, and early mornings on the hill above Harlem. They include getting yelled at by Bill O’Reilly and marching with Jennifer Lopez. They occurred with the backdrops of Cambridge, Miami, and countless spots in this city that has become my love and my home. All of these experiences have changed me. Combined, they mark the greatest, most important period in my life thus far.

And most importantly, they have given me stories to tell my grandchildren.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to thank the people who have made the last four years the best experience of my life. Columbia has treated me better than I ever could have asked or expected, I have learned an extraordinary amount, though not always what was intended and not always in the prescribed manner. The people who have touched my life have changed me irrevocably and for the better, from the scared, unkempt teenager who entered the gates four years ago into the scared, unkempt young adult who will receive his diploma in 19 days. The list of necessary acknowledgments is far too long to enumerate, but to the family, friends, and teachers of all forms who have made it all possible and worthwhile, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in urban studies. He was campus news deputy on the 130th deputy board and the campus news editor on the 131st managing board.