Five years ago, I was finishing a 10-week internship out of college with The Cincinnati Enquirer that stretched into 10 months.
My boss saw that The Clermont Sun had an opening for an editor and recommended the job to me. Admittedly, I didn’t know much of anything about Clermont County at the time. Only a few stories I reported on at The Enquirer overlapped with Clermont County.
I almost didn’t get the job. Yeah, I did okay on the AP style pop quiz (readers may be shocked to know I’m not exactly a grammar whiz), but what nearly disqualified me from the position was wearing jeans to the job interview. Yes, jeans!
I still think this is an apocryphal story told to me by Tony Adams, my former boss and publisher. The previous editor texted him, advising him not to hire me due to the aforementioned fashion faux paus of wearing jeans.
The reason I think it’s apocryphal is that I can’t imagine showing up to a job interview in jeans, but maybe I did. Nonetheless, Tony fortunately vouched for me and hired me anyways.
So, on Jan. 17, 2017, I officially started with The Clermont Sun. Not even three days into my training, I stepped out into the parking lot, called my then-girlfriend on the verge of teras, I’m not ashamed to say, and told her I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t be an editor.
I knew nothing about designing a newspaper or putting one together, which I was then tasked with doing. I also didn’t think I was “ready” or capable of being an editor, much less a “boss” to two others, my sports editor and reporter.
Imposter syndrome is like putting on a sweater that’s your size and should fit, but is itchy and doesn’t feel quite right around your neckline.
As it happens, somehow it’s been five years and I’m still here. And as it happens, one of the changes I’m most proud of in the five years I’ve been at The Clermont Sun is changing the design layout and look of the paper.
For longtime readers and subscribers, if you’ll remember, the paper used to have the old banner at top, with the Sun Group Newspapers logo and a single teaser to a sports story. At the bottom, we had an old-school index.
If I say so myself, the paper looks more a creature of the 21st century now.
My first story for the paper came out in the Jan. 26, 2017 edition about a flag raising at the Dairy Queen in Batavia in recognition of the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
That’s about as local as you can get and is another thing I’ve come to love about the paper and reporting in Clermont County: being a truly local paper. Yes, we sometimes snag items that have ramifications beyond Clermont County, but at heart, we are here to report on the goings-on in Clermont County, often overlooked (through no fault of their own, given limited resources) by my colleagues in Cincinnati.
I’ve also been happy, and continue to be happy, that we publish a lot of great locally-submitted pieces, whether that’s from inside the school districts, or wedding anniversary announcements, or poetry.
I’m proud of a lot when it comes to my time so far as editor of the paper — which isn’t an easy feat for me to obtain, given the prior imposter syndrome issue — whether that’s individual stories we’ve told over the years, or getting noticed by The New York Times, The Washington Post and others, or increasing our subscription numbers over the years, or expanding our Opinion section, including with more local voices and an 11-year-old’s cartoon, or that an old paper like ours has been able to expand more into the social media frontier.
But what I’m most proud of is that through these five years, I’ve had the same team by my side: Megan Alley and Garth Shanklin. That seems rather fortunate in an industry rife with turnover, career changes and the like.
My job title is “editor,” but Megan and Garth have always been the shadow editors of the paper, without whom I wouldn’t have lasted this long and the paper wouldn’t be as good as it is; they are a soundboard, the safety net, and, if I can be sappy, the sun in The Clermont Sun, providing a light to what can be a difficult job.
I owe any success I and the paper have had these last five years to them and to the many people behind the scenes, including the lovely graphics team, who will never get a byline or properly noticed.
I’m glad I didn’t give in to my fears in those early days with the paper, facing down a county of 220,000 people and dozens of entities I knew nothing about.
In 2017, I said I cannot promise perfection, but I can promise honesty, openness and delivering the content that matters to you.
I still maintain that promise for whatever the future of the paper with me as editor holds, and I like to think I’ve delivered on it these last five years.
But if I’m still not covering what you think matters, or if you have a general tip or inquiry, please contact me at bmilam@www.clermontsun.com.
Here’s to more time “in the sun,” and I hope you will follow along by subscribing, if you haven’t already. Visit clermontsun.com/subscribe or call 513-732-2511 during regular business hours to get started.