I worked as a full-time journalist for only my first three years after college, but I’ve never stopped drawing on the skills and mindset I developed at the Sun. Indeed, even now when editing a document, my mind may drift back to those late nights of copy editing (although none of it was digital then. Candidates running for managing editor used to promise to buy new typewriter ribbons.)
I’ve had a somewhat varied career in the policy world – working in the Congress on environmental policy and science policy, running government affairs for an environmental NGO and finally running federal affairs for MIT. All those jobs have involved a lot of writing and editing – everything from press releases to legislation – and I could not have done any of that as well without my Sun experience. I also wouldn’t have been able to write and edit as quickly without the Sun, with its old newsroom sign “This is a daily not a weekly.” I remain someone who works best – maybe works only – on deadline. (Sadly, I was not as good at deadlines on academic papers. A friend once asked if “incomplete” was my average.)
All that writing also opened unexpected doors. When I left Capitol Hill, the journal Nature asked me to write a monthly column on science policy that it was initiating. I had that gig for three years, until I took a job that presented a conflict – and I still miss it.
But my time at the Sun affected more than my writing. Thanks to the Sun, I’ve always felt comfortable with journalists – maybe more comfortable than with anyone else – which is not so typical in the roles I’ve had in Washington. That helped me shape the news that shaped policy outcomes, and I also got to benefit from all the information reporters share in conversation.
The Sun reporter in me has also meant that I’ve been the skeptic in each organization where I’ve worked, raising concerns from an outsider’s perspective when colleagues could otherwise tend toward group think. One of the first things I did when I stepped down from MIT earlier this year was reach out to journalists covering higher ed at major newspapers so we could have a fuller discussion about the impact of Trump on universities.
The Sun could also pop up in unlikely ways. In the late 1990s, I was staffing an ad hoc Congressional committee that was trying to find common ground on environmental issues between the most conservative and most moderate Republicans. (There were still truly moderate, pro-environment Republicans then, and they determined the outcome of House votes.) A reporter asked me what the volatile meetings of the committee were like. I said, thinking back to contentious Sun elections, “It’s like a college newspaper.” The reporter understood and laughed. He came back the next day and said that his editor was one of my former Sun colleagues (with whom I’d fallen out of touch). The reporter said, “My editor said to tell you she knows who you’re thinking of.” I said, “Then she knows it’s not her.”
Which brings me to perhaps the most important thing the Sun gave me – lifelong friends. While I am in only occasional touch with that editor, many of my closest friends are people I met on the Sun.
In these challenging times for journalism and politics, the Sun is needed more than ever for the Cornell community and beyond. But it also has an immeasurable and maybe unexpected impact on each of us who worked there. I wish the Sun and all those connected with it many more years of success.
David Goldston '78
Assistant Managing Editor
