As a reporter who elected to write for both the Campanile and the Voice, I sometimes feel spread thin. I also sometimes feel as though my loyalty is divided. Though Voice remains rather neutral in the Paly journalism wars, Campanile swings its head with a proud fury, proclaiming “We are the best” and expecting me to back them up.

Yeah, Campanile’s great and all, but Voice has its benefits too. I remember when I was on Voice before I had even joined Campy. I hated the Campy kids. From an outsider’s perspective their competitiveness seemed annoying and juvenile.

Once I joined Campanile I understood it more. There’s an energy that is constantly present in the Campy room, a sense of community and duty that motivates one to wave the Campanile flag in everyone’s face. Had I joined Campanile before Voice, I would probably be just as boisterously competitive.

I’m glad I joined Campanile with previous Voice experience. It kept me in check, stopped me from losing myself in a world of debauchery and excess.

The entire system of Voice and Campanile is different. In Campanile it is rigid. You write specific stories that have been assigned to you. You have a very specific due date, and then you spend a painstaking week placing stories on the page.

Voice is much more about writing, getting it up, and moving on. Voice is about speed too. It’s about getting the story before anyone else does. It’s about hopping on your bike to go talk to Mary Frances Callan as soon as she’s available, and then it’s about chilling in the robot room eating pizza with the tech club all night as you crank out your story.

It’s about the whole journalistic experience, or at least it can be.

The main difference between the two is that Voice is about being your own man, being independent in your pursuit of the story, while Campanile is about being part of team, a team that supports you and feeds you and will verbally abuse you if you mess up.

I am happy that I have the best of both worlds. Voice serves as contrast to judge Campy, and vice versa. I have learned to value the kind, accepting, and open minded views of the Voice editors as well as the cold, heartless, and domineering tactics of THEEDS 06-07. It has been good for my development as a journalist, and also good in helping me tolerate long hours of useless labor and soul crippling epithets from cut-throat ambitious seniors.