Letter From the Editor-in-Chief

Dear Reader, 

For the past four years, I have found myself writing letters addressed to you: the reader, my beloved collective abstraction. This will be my final such letter. As I struggle to determine what words are possibly worthy of being the last I will ever write for this magazine, I keep coming back to you, to me, to us, to our relationship: the writer and the reader. 

For the duration of your engagement with this letter, our roles are fixed. I am the creator, and you are the consumer. But after reading hundreds of your articles during my stint as an editor, I know our relationship is fluid. Me and you do not exist on opposite ends of a one-way street; our relationship is more like an eight-lane highway. 

This is to say: media is complex and powerful and collectively determined. Media does more than passively reflect events. Media actively constructs reality. Media influences what you care about, where you care about, why you care about, and how you care about. Media privileges certain voices and certain stories and, intentionally or inadvertently, excludes other voices and other stories. And while media shapes you, you shape media right back. You seek out certain content. You trust some outlets, and you avoid others. You repost Instagram stories. You reshare articles. You uplift. You donate. You amplify. You may even write. In each case, you leave an indelible mark on the living and breathing organism of knowledge production that we broadly call media. 

And somewhere among this dialectic, there we are: me and you, writer and reader, suspended for a moment in time. As you leave our relationship behind and enter into others, I hope that you recognize the essential role that you play in producing and consuming knowledge. Media is so much more dimensional than the corporatist sliding scale of Fox News to MSNBC. Media can be independent and radical and justice-based and community-oriented. Local media-makers such as Georgia Fort, Unicorn Riot, The Neighborhood Reporter, Sahan Journal, The Minnesota Reformer, On Site Public Media, and Move for Justice News have proven that much to be true. As readers and listeners, our role is not passive. For independent media to thrive, we must nurture it--follow social media accounts, consume stories, amplify work, and support individuals reporting from the frontlines. 

Now, I should probably end this stilted farewell on a personal note. After four years at The Wake Magazine, I’m left with an immeasurably heavy feeling of gratitude that tears through each page I attempt to place it on. No words can adequately express how much I’ve gained from this space and this community, so I’ll keep this part brief: thank you. For everything. Keep in touch. 

Tala Alfoqaha