Why I hate The Sun

The sun made San Diego amazing, yet The Sun also ruined my whole trip to San Diego – and in many ways, ruined the whole academic year concerning all things Sentinel-related. For, you see, the sun’s warmth (88 degrees at the high) made the beach an amazing place for frisbee and swimming in the Pacific Ocean.

(Sidenote: one amazing thing about visiting SoCal from NoHo ((cool abbreviation for North Idaho: I made it up. After all, why does Southern Cali get the only sweet nickname?)) was that we are so used to cold weather up here, jumping into a freezing ocean was nothing. While locals surfed amidst each other clamored in full-body wet/dry suits, us NoHo boys sprinted feverishly into the salty abyss in our scanty swim trunks. Needless to say, Nick, David and myself were the only shirtless warriors on the beach – oh yeah, the Californians were speechless, but probably ‘cause we’re so white)

Obviously, the sun was amazing. I even didn’t mind it’s glaring wrath as we were backed up along I-5 in Los Angeles.

However, The Southwestern College “Sun” is another reminder that the world is not perfect. It’s also a reminder that fate is but a cruel bitch lover. The Sun, which hails from Southern California’s own Southwestern College, took home Best-in-Show for the ACP journalism convention.

Why? Because local bias obviously dictated the judging.

After all, the eight awards (1st through 8th) for Best-of-Show included six California schools. Only North Idaho and a school from Wyoming were also “honored.” Furthermore, not to take anything away from The Sun, but even though they finished second to The Sentinel in Kansas City (they’re really not a bad paper at all), not one other school we asked felt they held a chance at winning first this time around.

No lie, their paper is consistent: consistently mediocre. Whereas The Sentinel is phenomenal in most sections, yet sub-par in others (our Student Life and Sports sections are the most poorly-designed in the paper – yet still better than most papers), overall we trumped every two-year college paper at the convention.

And that’s not just me.

Dozens of other newspapers complimented myself and those in attendance with me about The Sentinel. Where all papers constantly fail (headline writing, photography and – most importantly, as far as I’m concerned – design), we dominate. Regularly. And people notice.

So that’s the thing, if nobody else thought we were a superior paper I would kindly bow down to The Sun. But that is obviously not the case. You be the judge. Check out there paper here. Check out ours here. Let me know what you think (their website rocks. Ours sucks. But I’m only worried about print editions).

So as bitter as I can be – and will continue to be – my girlfriend looks to bring solace as much as she can: While I have always considered second place the equivalent of honorable mention (i.e. nobody cares!), Holly tries to bring be back down to earth: “Learn to lose like a champ.”

I will never do that.

But at least I won’t obsess about taking first in every competition this year. Because now I can’t win first in everything.