Scanned by 192 eyes

Editor-in-chief reveals the trials and tribulations

of leading the [X] mega-staff

By Kim Santos

Editor in chief

A hush falls over the crowd. They’re all there — all 96 of them, all 192 eyes — waiting intensely, scanning me up and down.

A foot scuffles. Someone coughs. I glance around the room.

"Hi, I’m your editor in chief," I say. Whistles blow, bells ring, fireworks shoot into the air and the music from "2001: A Space Odyssey" starts playing. It’s time to manage a mega-staff.

The past 15 weeks have handed me an experience on a silver platter — that of handling a group of more than 90 of my peers. This is a luxury few of the state’s successful small publications enjoy. Yet I, a 23-year-old, five-year college transfer student, got to tuck it under my belt.

I can best compare my time as editor of SF State’s Golden Gate [X]press to a roller coaster — it had its ups, downs, twists, turns, and sometimes you get that feeling like your stomach is flipping over, but it’s always fun.

The downs came along when I found myself wishing I could be three people. Such a large staff, yet everyone is busy (concept most overlooked by college professors: we have other classes!) and things need to get done. Delegation is a sweet thing, as long as you remember and have time to follow up. Otherwise, the only sure way to get things done sometimes is to do them yourself. And then you begin pondering the merits of multiple personality disorder.

With such a large group, it’s also hard to get to know everyone. Eventually, I did, but others didn’t. Not everyone could attend publication socials (best way to get to know someone: watch them sing karaoke while inebriated), and joint publication meetings were impersonal. It was an effort to meet new people, yet, I felt obligated as the editor to know who my staff members were.

It took real motivation on anybody’s part to learn names and faces outside of their group or section — meaning, you really had to either have a reason or just wanted to meet everyone and actually remember who they were. With 90-plus people, it starts to get crazy. How dumb does it feel to call someone the wrong name? I’ll go with "very" for $1,000, Alex.

Ah, but the ups were the kind of roller coaster hills that make you forget the scary drops. Slowly, the car climbs, cranking, working, pushing, and finally making the long-awaited view worthwhile — sometimes even better than you expected.

I’m talking about plain ol’ cooperation here. From banding together during a scolding (for lack of a better word--or at least one I can print) by the university’s police chief, to debating en masse whether to run David Horowitz’s anti-slave reparations ad, [X]press and the people behind it have proven that teamwork pays off. So what’s the secret?

There isn’t one. At least not one I can give you a recipe for. Everyone’s different; everyone has a different managerial style. I tried to employ a lot of group decisions to make everyone feel included, to remind them that their roles are all equal and make things fair. But, that may not work for everyone. Really, the secret is what’s inside you — it comes naturally. If you ignore your own innate skills, bad things are sure to follow.

To the next editor-in-chief, Michelle Lister, I wish you good luck. Of course, we, the outgoing staff, will be your guiding lights until we graduate and swim off into this "world" I keep hearing about. The things we will teach you will be valuable, but you may want to spin them. And that’s OK. Because the only way to be a good journalist is to take what you know and learn, and make them fit your strategy. And the biggest tip I can ever leave anyone: If something doesn’t work, change it!

It’s been a great semester — a landmark one for [X]press. I’ll miss the job and the great people I’ve worked with (my more than 100-member family!). But I’ll always remember that feeling we get when we see our work fly off the news stands, or that Web counter register 2,000 hits. On the roller coaster, the ride always seems to last only about 30 seconds. But wasn’t it worth waiting in line all that time?