To a Hundred More Years of The Caravan

By: Dania Akkawi
Editor-in-Chief

Two weeks ago, The Caravan held an exhibition showcasing different issues from 1925 to 2018 at the Photographic Gallery .

As the current editor-in-chief, of course, I should be happy. And I am.

I always knew The Caravan had a long history way before I was even a student at AUC. This is mainly because one of my mom’s friend’s, Dalia Baligh, happened to be the editor-in-chief in the early 1980s. So I heard all about this student newspaper every time they met.

But seeing it all in front of me in one place at the gallery definitely had an impact.

Aside from the print copy of The Caravan, the actual physical space itself has history. I don’t know where The Caravan newsroom used to be at Tahrir campus but even though it’s not there anymore, the print issues they produced are with us in the archives room today.

This always serves as a reminder that we walk in the footsteps of so many journalism students who came before us.

It’s beautiful knowing how connected we all are and how similar our problems are, too. It’s like nothing ever changes.

Aside from the stress and weight on my shoulders at this point…especially right now because I am writing this at 1 in the morning…I feel the need to be as proficient as every other editor that came before me.

There are so many expectations to meet which I don’t think I realized until recently.

Every week at precisely the exact same time, I call Eman (Emy), she’s the deputy managing arabic editor, and I complain to her about not having an op-ed idea. This conversation usually takes place Wednesday night, the day before we send the issue to print. If you know Emy, you know she is organized and that she probably finished writing her op-ed a week in advance.

Emy was one of the first people I talked to about this and inevitably, she recommended I write about it.

I wasn’t actually going to listen to her until Nada Tarek, one of my editors, pulled me out of the newsroom so that we could sit in the gardens before her 11:30 am class.

This doesn’t usually happen. Before 11:30 on Wednesday, Nada is often working on her audio class and I am sitting right across doing layout. But this felt like the right time to procrastinate on everything anyway.

No matter what Nada and I talk about, it usually… almost always, revolves around something we are both worried about. We have a history of postponing important decisions out of the fear of taking any decision at all.

I treat this newspaper a little bit like my own baby… and it’s fine because I guess babies are allowed to be annoying sometimes.

I didn’t really tell Nada about this specifically but just leaving the newsroom for 20 minutes made me realize how much I live in my own stress.

Every Sunday morning I should be excited that the issue is printed and ready for distribution but instead I always concern myself over potential mistakes. Let’s hope this one works out fine just like the last one.