A Brief Letter From Your Co-Editor-in-Chief
Discover the redesigned Fanfare. From new social media campaigns to the website redesign, The Fanfare is back and better than ever.
Changing the Constitution is difficult. It takes two thirds of both houses (or two thirds of the states) to call for a proposal for an amendment to the Constitution, and following that lengthy process, ratification by the state legislatures of three fourths of the states. It’s easier to defeat an amendment than to introduce one. Thus, the Constitution operates in favor of the status quo.
We’ve had a disappointing total of 17 amendments over the course of 200 years of American history. It takes 13 years for one unit of change. To put that in perspective, in the span of 13 years, I’ve learned to ride a bike, learned to read, graduated elementary school, entered and exited middle school and entered high school. My life has undergone more change than the Constitution.
The point of this article isn’t to critique the Madisonian system (although there is plenty of room for that).
The point is simple. Change is hard.
It is so easy to fall into a cycle of complacency, lulled into inaction by just how easy it is to do absolutely nothing. Confronted with the enormous task of running The Fanfare for the next year, I faced two paths. To my right was a downhill slope in which The Fanfare would continue to publish the same articles, maintain mediocre viewership and eventually arrive back at the exact same starting point. To my left was an uphill climb with a destination that stretched into the stars. The path to my left meant redesigning the website, reinventing the Fanfare and constantly pushing for The Fanfare to become greater, better, bigger. The path to my left meant hours of work, hours of meetings and doing absolutely everything. We were on the precipice of either great change or mediocrity.
I chose change. After all, to leave a legacy is the only task one can really accomplish in this world. Months later, here we are.
Website redesign, check.
New columns and opinion pieces, check.
New and reinvented YouTube platform featuring interviews and commentary on events, check.
New Snapchat account with exciting new stories from the student body, check.
New social media series and contests, check.
We chose change, and there’s more to come. The Fanfare is back, bigger and better than ever.
Jennifer Luo
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Jennifer is a senior at Berkeley and has served on Fanfare as a staff writer, a news section editor, the social media editor, and now the co-editor-in-chief....
