I was sitting in another meeting with my fellow editors at The OU Daily when our adviser suggested those of us who’d be back next semester should start to discuss plans for the future of our newsroom and its work.
I sat for a second before it sank in that I would not be part of that.
Although this happened in early March, and it was my senior year, this was the first time I had let myself acknowledge that my time at OU and at The Daily was nearing an end.
While I’ve been around campus all my life, that career really started three years ago, like many students on campus, when I walked into my first meeting of a new organization.
For me, that was the sports desk. I was an awkward sophomore in a room full of seemingly confident reporters all talking about the features they were planning and the sports they were covering. I was promptly assigned the men’s golf beat, a sport I love and find as one of the only stress-relieving hobbies I have.
Sixteen weeks later, as I was still the awkward sophomore feeling out of place in every meeting, I had written a total of two stories and I began thinking of another place where I could make an impact or gain some knowledge in the field of journalism.
The next semester, I switched to the news desk, where I spent the next five semesters and one summer.
Jonathan Kyncl interviews OU President Joseph Harroz Jr.
Reporting is an exercise in quickly getting up to speed, and writing knowledgeably about, something you might have never heard of just hours before. Suffice it to say, I often felt like I didn’t know what I was doing and had a constant hum of anxiety as an undertone for everything I was doing.
Covering events, calling a source and sending stories to editors would all make my anxiety spike. My chest would get tight, my hands would shake and I would stumble over every word. It gave me the same feeling as the times I would have to go on an unplanned trip or try to give a speech in front of hundreds of people for the first time.
Another side effect of this anxiety was self-doubt. I kept thinking I wasn’t going to ask the right questions in interviews. I would change the lede of my story multiple times. And still, I didn’t think my stories were good when I turned them in.
It all left me unsure this was the place for me.
Then, with my uncertainty and anxiety still rising, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I was lost. I would still go to my virtual news desk meetings and try to get work done for The Daily, but I felt like I was just walking aimlessly through all of it.
I felt alone. Even though the entire globe was facing the same issue, the 12 hours a day I spent alone in my room made me feel isolated and unmotivated to accomplish anything. I often think of anxiety as a wave sweeping over me when a panic attack strikes, and at this time of my life, it seemed like stepping foot outside of my house was like being dropped in an ocean.
As I still felt alone and stressed most of the days in my room, I started to feel more connected to the community and realized that we are all going through this together. We all have stressors, challenges and hills to climb, but in finding a common cause with others, we surmount them together, so I looked toward The Daily to build that community.
Jonathan Kyncl interviews OU Dean of Students David Surratt.
Then I came to the newsroom in August 2020. Not really knowing who to talk to, I sat in the corner trying to avoid eye contact with others.
It was my roommate, Chandler Engelbrecht, who has worked for The Daily for four years, who started forcing me to talk with some people there. It was only then — when I found the courage to step a little out of my comfort zone — that I feel like I truly became a part of the room.
And made some of my most cherished memories.
Some are about the work. Driving to the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City at 7 a.m. to cover my first Board of Regents meeting. A source allowing me to write an in-depth profile to shine a light on such a dark situation. Going to the Oklahoma state Capitol every day for a week to cover Julius Jones, which I got to continue and add a powerful bookend to. Getting a text from my editor Blake Douglas telling me I made it to paid staff. Being promoted to an editing job at the end of my junior year. Getting to work with Chandler and my other roommate, Will Blessing. Having Seth Prince tear through my stories to show me how to get better and, maybe inadvertently, teach me how to push my anxiety to the side and power on.
Others are about the people and the fun we had along the way. I’ll always remember playing “Jeopardy!” on slow (or not always slow) days in the newsroom with Makenna Buckskin as the host. Having random arguments like, “Is South Detroit in Canada?” with Will Conover. Walking into the newsroom after being offered an internship and being immediately tackled with excitement by Chandler and Austin Curtright. Or going to The Library with Justin Jayne, Rachel Lobaugh and Francisco Gutierrez. Sitting on the creaky wooden chair in Seth’s office to talk anything from work to life overall where he’d typically encourage me to think like our mutual friend and inspiration, Susan Sasso.
Jonathan Kyncl poses for a photo at The Library Bar and Grill.
These examples helped me find solace in doing the typically unforgiving work of being a student journalist and helped make Copeland Hall a haven where I could avoid anxiety attacks.
That’s all what I hadn’t acknowledged until that meeting, where our future leaders started to more fully take the reins: after May 14, I will no longer be working for The Daily.
I simply didn’t want it to be true that I’d soon be leaving a place that in times of high stress or just to joke around I had talked about quitting numerous times. A place that has helped make me who I am today.
Bittersweet though it is, I can’t wait to see what happens next for The Daily. To hear about the new triumphs and struggles, which reporters are beginning to step up and what internships come next. While I won’t be on those walks to the Union with colleagues who are true friends or working for a place like a newsroom, I’m still patiently awaiting the texts I’ll get from those former coworkers turned best friends about this newsroom.
Being a kid raised in Norman, one who barely lived off of campus his entire life, who would walk around campus trying to memorize the building names and who would typically try to avoid the large group of college students awaiting free home-cooked meals at his family’s house that was also a campus ministry, makes me even more grateful for this experience.
I never thought I would be leaving campus thinking about how a campus job made me feel like I was back at that house, with students coming in and out whenever they pleased. Others coming in for a conversation or for advice. Some with food for others to enjoy. But this time, I wasn’t a stressed-out kid trying to avoid people, I had the privilege of being more of a greeter for the newsroom. I loved every second of it.
So, to end this final letter, thank you. Thank you to the newsroom as a whole, the sources who entrusted me to write your stories, the people who read the stories I worked so hard on, the friends I made along the way and, of course, Seth.
Thank you.
Jonathan Kyncl served as a sports reporter for fall 2019, news reporter from spring 2020 to summer 2020, junior news reporter for fall 2020, senior news reporter for spring of 2021, news editor for fall 2021 and assistant news managing editor for spring of 2022. He is a journalism graduate with a minor in international studies.
