I'm jaded about journalism. There, I said it. It's more of a business now than ever before, and it's moving in a direction I don't want to see it go. The stories are more glorified and gratuitous, the search for "news" has become silly at times.

Check it out yourself. Go to one of the Penn State Readership boxes and pull out the fine publication Blue that wraps around The Centre Daily Times. I don't think journalism has a place for poopy and booby jokes. It's happening all around the country, though. Our age demographic is what every newspaper wants to grab and keep. The industry thinks young people want curse words and sexual references.

It's hip and edgy. Right.

I'm jaded because when I turn on the TV to "news" programs, it's a back-and-forth banter between the far left and the far right. That's not news. That's not even accurate of what most of the people in this country think. Or, at least, I can't believe that every person thinks the way that Fox News and CNN describe the views of Republicans and Democrats. (Excuse me, liberals and conservatives; that's all you can be today.) Heck, if you show your left boob, lean politically to the right and then write a book about how you screwed over your boss, you'll be an instant headline.

I've listened the past few years to our readers complain we're too far left, that we're corrupt. They're just students, and they're just learning, people say.

Yes, we are students. But I can tell you that I've had some of the brightest minds in journalism serve as guides for members of my staff and me. An adviser with more than two decades of newsroom management experience. A man whose Philadelphia Inquirer newsroom is named after him. A man who was CEO and president of Gannett, which owns USA Today. And I am forever indebted to these individuals for helping me along the way.

But, if "Published independently by students at Penn State" were taken off The Daily Collegian, we wouldn't be as heavily criticized as we are. If those words weren't publicized, people wouldn't know whether the pages of this community newspaper were owned by Knight Ridder or by a 117-year history of thousands of past and present Penn State students.

I'll tell you, I've grown an incredibly thick skin the past four years -- even thicker this year as head editor of this "rag." We've tried to make sure Penn State was documented and given to readers every day with clarity and objectivity, and then I got to listen to people complain and criticize it every day, too, because that has been my job.

It's damn hard to work hour after hour, day after day, trying to make something that affects an entire community, incites change and brings discussion to that community, and then watch it be torn down constantly.
It's hard to believe in something so much and then have it ripped to shreds because someone doesn't agree with what's being said or discredits it because a word was misspelled.

It's hard when we mull over a decision of whether to run a story for hours, sometimes days even, and then have it passed off as an irresponsible decision -- even if an identical story runs in another paper that isn't run by those students.

But we do it here. We do it every day.

For all of us, every day was an inspiration, a test to make things better the next day, because, yes, there were mistakes printed. They're printed in every newspaper in this country every day. The New York Times has one of the largest sections of corrections each day. And those situations don't make credibility any easier for us.

Looking back on this year at Penn State, I have mixed feelings. I never expected when I was 18-years-old and arriving at Penn State that I would be the editor in chief of one of the largest student newspapers in the country.
And now, after the quickest year of my life, it's even harder to be leaving it behind.

After four years of a horrible diet, a smoking addiction (tried to quit about 16 times and counting), a Diet Coke addiction, trying to pay my rent and credit card bills, a terrible case of mono, a few nights of crying out of frustration, a shoddy GPA and a whole lot of alcohol, I've realized something: This place, this paper, has made my college career so much more rewarding than anything else.

To be so involved in something, to immerse yourself in a job that has no glory, to skip out on the extravagant lifestyle and the absence of money and sanity -- that says something about the individuals who work here.

Even after all the hours of listening to readers complain, forgetting about homework and class, missing out on snow days (yes, we still publish a paper the next day), of all those arguably "awful" things, I wouldn't change it for the world. I haven't met any other people at Penn State who are more passionate and excited about life and their jobs than these 190-some people who call the Collegian their home.

I have the best Penn State students working at the Collegian with me. I say that confidently, without any hesitation. I've never seen so many 20-somethings have as much dedication. These are the students who work 40 to 60 hours per week -- yes, work, because this isn't just a club or a hobby. Somehow they manage to go to their full class schedule. These students, these incredible individuals who make this paper come out every day, are what I am going to take away from my experience at Penn State.

And even if all my friends and colleagues, my passion, my profession are shot down every day, I would do it all over again.

This paper, the one you take the crossword from every day, is among the best in the nation. This paper has some of the best student-journalists in this country who have won 47 awards this year alone. I don't gloat often about the Collegian, but I'm doing it now. It's something that students at Penn State should realize is a major part of their community.

The state of journalism still has me unsettled. There are a lot of problems with the industry, but a lot of great things, too. The Collegian is among those great things because we aren't tainted by big business. We aren't looking for fame or money, or waiting for our books to be published. We barely have time to even read a book for pleasure. It's pure here. It's pure dedication and love for something that has meaning.

And that should mean everything to our readers.

After all is said and done, I want to thank our readers because you are why I'm in this business. And the criticisms you give are my incentive to do better, and I thank you for them. Thanks for picking us up all these years. I hope you keep doing so.