All about moving forward

No endings, only new beginnings

Ican’t tell you how many goodbye columns I’ve read over the years from reporters leaving their posts, lamenting over the ills of the industry and trying to piece together words that can accurately explain the bittersweet feeling of walking away from their career in journalism.

Now that I’m sitting here trying to decide how to close this 15-year chapter of working for community newspapers, I realize how bad I suck at goodbyes. Goodbyes are hard. Change is hard. But, if the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that life is too short and too precious to not do what your heart is calling you to do.

Right now, my heart is calling me to embark on a much different career path, one that for years I’ve been slowly preparing myself for. The same passions that led me to journalism are the same passions that have led me to work for a growing nonprofit working to improve people’s lives in Appalachia.

I’ve always been a writer. In high school, I chose to go into journalism because I wanted to use my writing talent and my curious nature to help people. I was swept up in the power of the pen and convinced that if people knew better, they could do better.

I truly saw it as a calling and found myself fortunate enough to find meaningful work alongside some incredibly talented and hardworking mentors who taught me valuable lessons along the way.

The road was never easy — long hours, low pay, constant deadlines and an unimaginable amount of self-induced pressure to be credible, accurate and objective.

The last several years have been incredibly challenging for journalism and for journalists in the wake of social media, fake news, distrust of the media, and people who would rather get their news from TikTok videos than their trusted local newspaper, but I digress.

I have had incredible colleagues and an audience that appreciates the work we do, and I’m not saying community journalism isn’t still making a huge impact in the community. I know The Smoky Mountain News makes a difference every day, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t felt the pinch, the burnout and disillusion from dealing with the constant fact-deniers at every turn. I kept trying to hang on, hoping my feelings would change and my motivation would return. It’s been hard to accept that my personal values have changed and my professional goals have shifted in a new direction. Being a journalist and being embedded in my community has been so much of my identity, I wasn’t sure what would be left if it went away.

For the last two years, I’ve done my personal work around that thought and I’ve truly re-evaluated who I am, who I want to be and tried to align that with my values. I knew I wanted to be more of an advocate for the issues I care about — social justice, equality, affordable housing, accessible and high-quality public education, and affordable quality health care.

When that opportunity presented itself, I couldn’t let it pass me by. Beginning this week, I will be working for Pisgah Legal Services, a nonprofit organization that offers free civil legal representation for people who can’t afford it. In addition to that mission, PLS received a multi-year grant from Dogwood Health Trust to expand their services and programs into the far western counties.

The goal is to decrease child poverty and increase the number of people who have affordable health insurance in Western North Carolina by helping people sign up for health insurance on the marketplace and help them file taxes so they can take advantage of the earned income and child tax credits available through the federal Economic Recovery Act.

I will be the WNC Economic Recovery Program Director for the seven most western counties. It’s a brand-new position and it will be a challenge, but I trust that I have everything I need to be successful.

The great thing is I get to stay in Waynesville and maintain the relationships I’ve built with people in the western counties over the last decade. I get to work closely with other nonprofits who’ve already been doing this work in their communities.

The Smoky Mountain News has been my home for more than seven years. I know they will carry on the mission without me, but it will be hard not to be in the newsroom everyday with my work family. I have so much gratitude in my heart for my colleagues and their ability to be happy for me, while also letting me know how much they’ll miss me. That’s all I could hope for during this transition.

While I may no longer be a reporter, rest assured I will always be a writer and I remain committed to serving my community in new ways.

Thank you to my amazing support system of family, friends, mentors, and cheerleaders for getting me through the last couple of months of doubt, anxiety, and now celebration. The support and encouragement everyone has shown me has been overwhelming.

My heart is full. (Jessi Stone can be reached at bohemianjean@gmail.com.)

Jessi Stone Guest Columnist

Is justice really just?

To the Editor:

Justice. What is it?

Is it a thing, a value, an idea, an ethic, a rule, an ideal? Plato tells us that Socrates sought answers by examining the opinions of passersby in Athens 2,500 years ago. A variety of answers were given, even Socrates’ own. But Socrates was as unsure as his interlocutors.

In our world, that of the west, most of us do not have a clue. And for those who do, it is highly skewed — that is, we make of it what we wish, which is pretty much where it stood in the times of that man martyred for his piety.

But, it is more than a wee bit up in the air today. Judges deal in justice. Or they are supposed to. There is a judge on the bench representing the 30th District Court that does not have an inkling, even though the North Carolina Judicial Code of conduct lays down tenets and parameters regarding justice that are not to be crossed. Impartiality is one such. Fairness is another. Not taking sides for personal or political reasons. But this judge flaunts all that when she can, when she knows she can get away with it.

This no doubt is not an unusual tale. Judges across the nation abuse their authority. The power of being king or queen of the courtroom goes to their heads. They have lost their way, and so have many — if not most — Americans. You can’t expect leadership in a courtroom, the place where justice should not be tainted.

Times are moving too quickly for the good, the true, and the beautiful to bear fruit in its kinship with justice. We are bedazzled by novelty, by mayhem, by anxiety, rootlessness, transformation, self-centeredness, extravagance, and decimation of value that no longer has a linchpin enabling the connection between and among those values we once held most dear. To be tried is in the nature of life. To be tested is in the nature of wisdom. To break with the past with no firm and reasonable and just sight of the future leaves us only in the present.

No age with whomever its people has ever lived solely there. The Zen monk is compelled by biology to escape the moment. The committed Christian too frequently forgets her aim is heavenward. Time is all awhirl around us but we know not how to trim our sails. Forsaken by those who acquire power, we are left drifting in a miasma of laxity in the upholding of the just.

So what is this just after all? Or before all? Is there embedded in justice some universali-

LETTERS