About a decade ago, I cracked open a fortune cookie after lunch at Tsing Tao with the Boulder Weekly editorial staff.
“You have found good company — enjoy,” the cookie’s clairvoyant guts instructed.
That slip of paper moved around the office with me over the next 10 years, from intern to special editions to arts and culture to managing editor and finally to editor-in-chief. The fortune is taped to my computer now as I write this, my final piece as a staff member at Boulder Weekly.
I’m not a columnist. That was never my calling as a journalist. But this moment, this transition, warrants a step outside my comfort zone to thank the many people who have helped me live a childhood dream.
Much has changed since I first stepped into Boulder Weekly’s digs on South Lashley Lane, but the company I’ve kept here has always been extraordinary. It takes a certain kind of personality to be a journalist: inquisitive, social, intrepid, disciplined. But it’s compassion that has always made me feel at home, no matter who shared the masthead with me. It takes bottomless humility to interview strangers about unfamiliar or difficult subjects, a deadline always looming. Your writing will be analyzed, dissected and reconstructed from its constituent parts. Mistakes require public apologies. Compensation is modest.
People accuse journalists of being biased — of course we’re biased. The reporters I know want the world to be a better place, where everyone has access to stable housing, nutritious food, quality healthcare and advanced education. They want a world where people with uteruses have the right to choose whether or not they want to give birth. A world where universal healthcare separates the ability to maintain physical wellbeing from full-time employment. A world where free childcare and college education means a single parent can still follow their professional dreams. A world where a physician isn’t committing a felony by providing gender-affirming care to a 25-year-old transgender individual. A world where capitalism doesn’t justify endless extraction.
Community journalism localizes these issues and brings them home, where change can truly begin. When done correctly, journalism does much more than merely inform: It speaks truth to power.
I hope I’ve made some positive changes through my work at Boulder Weekly, even if that’s simply to help people feel seen and heard. I know this job has changed me for the better. I’ve expanded my mind and heart exponentially by engaging with countless people across many walks of life. Thank you for sharing your stories with me. Thanks for calling me out when I was wrong … and when I was right. Thanks for showing me things I never would have seen otherwise. Thanks for reading.
As I close my chapter at the paper, I’m ecstatic to welcome the new editor-in-chief, Shay Castle, whose work with the Daily Camera, and then her own enterprise, Boulder Beat, exemplifies her versatility, resiliency, empathy and dedication as a journalist. She has a fantastic team of reporters behind her: arts and culture editor Jezy Gray, a prolific writer and crackerjack editor whose title belies the weight he carries around the office; reporter Will Matuska, who got his first experience in journalism at Minnesota Public Radio before bringing his talents to Boulder Weekly; and reporter Kaylee Harter, a journalism graduate from Ohio State who came to Boulder Weekly after dipping her toes in the nonprofit world at Community Resource Center in Denver. It’s a small but mighty staff, and each of them, including Shay, has lifted my spirits when I didn’t think I could do the job. My gratitude to and respect for each of them is boundless.
Thanks to publisher Fran Zankowski for asking me to challenge myself in the role of editor-in-chief. I didn’t always like it, Fran, but I invariably loved it.
My final plea as editor is to ask you to continue to support local journalism — you’re already doing it by reading this. Boulder Weekly is a truly independent newspaper, staffed by people who live in your community. This isn’t “the media,” these are your neighbors. Become a regular donor to the paper at boulderweekly.com/donate, share BW stories on socials and write letters to the editor ([email protected]).
May your fortune be as rewarding as mine at Boulder Weekly.
Caitlin Rockett was a reporter and editor at Boulder Weekly for 10 years. She has freelanced at alternative newsweeklies across the country, including LA Weekly. She’s now the director of communications at Out Boulder County, which facilitates connection, advocacy, education, research and programming to ensure LGBTQ+ people thrive.
