From My Desk: Feb. 25

2-25-26

By Lauren Royce

Editor

More exciting news for you all: we are getting closer to our new website launch, and guess what! One of my friends at the bookstore where I live had a nifty idea. She suggested we add a form for news tips, so if anyone has a tip I should know about, they have the option to submit it on our site. I know I’ve seen it on websites for TV stations, so it’s not like we reinvented the wheel here, but still. I wish I could steal her brain for a week or two while mine goes through a wash cycle or something.
That’s the very thing, though: ideas do not just come from me digging around or stuff happening and my having to follow it. News can come from anyone, any time, anywhere. It comes from talking to people. This thought has had the same revolutionary glimmer as the tried-and-true realization that the world does not hate me and I do not hate it, I simply have neglected to eat something or sleep well enough. Every single time without fail, the answer to one or multiple problems has been one of those three things. Eat, sleep, make a call or stop in somewhere.
That process, as you’ll evidently see flipping through this issue, is what gained me more than two or three stories this week. I am going to do my absolute best to adhere to what the bossman has advised me to do, and get you guys four or five things each week. The winter blues have really packed a punch this season, but I realized an unfortunate truth: I had forgotten to say so, like, at all. Yet another simple truth: ask for help when you need it. Burning out and having a job that doesn’t sleep does not mix well, so I have to remember to use my tools, metaphorical and real. Like the fabulous Alyssa Liu, now a two-time gold medalist in the Winter Olympics who skated with joy and glee that has inspired many hearts including my own. She made a spectacular return to her sport on her own terms and it made her shine all the more.
But winter blues or not, you can count on one constant: there will never, and I mean never, be any AI-generated material in this paper. Never. At least as long as I’m here. Every story I and my writers make is organic, free-range, fueled by caffeine and carbs and a little spite and determination. All construction, from questions to angles to quotes, is hand and brain crafted. It is a tool I use for running through tape, which I check against audio for accuracy, and that’s basically it. No robo-paper here, no way, no how.
Lauren Royce is the editor of the Susquehanna Independent. She is a 2024 graduate of SUNY Oswego with a B.A. in journalism.