The problem with print journalism is that it never goes away. Online, I can wipe away a blog post into oblivion. An editor can strike out a typo or a misspelling on an article and pretend it never happened. In the printed record, you’re out of luck, because there’s always going to be some copy stuck in a doting grandma’s dusty attic, or inked on a roll of microfiche in the musty campus archives.

I wonder what that hapless student 100 years in the future is going to think about The Chimes, this piece of time frozen on fragile newsprint, this permanent, documented fact from someone who is long since forgotten. I bet that student will go through the old, yellow copies in the library and wonder, “What were they thinking when they printed an entire, full-page story about mustaches?” or maybe, “A whole page on the feral cats?”

I wonder what Chimes stories will age well. As I’ve researched old copies of The Chimes, some things seem trite, trivial, cheesy. Some paint events in unnatural, glowing terms and tell me how “good times were had by all” at the Spring Banquet. Others betray their immaturity as they try to uncover a monumental Biola scandal using one or two sources and 500 words. At the end of the day, they are a college newspaper, and it’s painfully obvious they’ve been written by 20-year-olds.

But other stories age like a good wine. Fifty years after printing they still make sense, because they put Biola in its cultural context. They transport me to another time, another place, and they give me a fuller understanding of what this university is all about and where it’s going.
With just nine days until I graduate, I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy. Here I am, at 22, and I’ve spent these past four years pouring my heart and soul into this campus newspaper. I’ve spent countless hours in interviews, and I’ve spent exactly 8 weeks, 4 days, 13 hours and 56 minutes on BUBBS. I’ve stayed up till 5 or 6 in the morning on many Wednesday nights, losing sleep and zoning out during Thursday classes in the name of this student newspaper.

Now that it’s over, I ask myself: Was it really worth it?

I guess that’s a question time will tell. But let me tell you something – we here at The Chimes think this student newspaper is worthwhile. There are 22 of us on staff this semester, and for most, it’s a bit of an obsession. Sometimes we work such long hours that we crash on the sofa in our office – and stay there through the night. We stain articles with the red ink of our editor’s pen, we agonize about how to phrase sensitive topics, we debate over the correct use of the comma. Earlier this year, an epic intellectual battle raged over whether to capitalize the “w” in Web site. (You can see how that was decided.)

We’re just a bunch of average, error-prone college students, but we produce this paper every week because we believe, deep down, in the power of a free press, not just to hold institutions accountable, but to empower people with a clearer understanding of what is happening at this school. The Chimes isn’t just a student paper to us – it’s a dynamic, powerful living thing to us. It separates people, and it brings people together.

Perhaps most importantly, we do it because we want people to remember – for years to come – the stories, the lessons and the realities of 2009: how a mural shook our foundations and made us question our theology, how an economic downturn became a school-wide test of faith, how some feral campus cats brought out the best in students. We hope the articles don’t seem frivolous to you, reader of 2109, but that they ferment like a good wine and help you understand who the people were that went before you, and how their actions, for better or for worse, have shaped the ethos of this university.

As I finish my last week of working for The Chimes, I’m painfully aware that the mistakes I’ve made during these four years are permanently, irrevocably published. After all, the problem with print journalism is that it never goes away.

But the more I think about it, its permanence could be the best thing about working for The Chimes. This newsprint chronicle is our legacy.

I guess time will tell if it was a good one.