My doctors are adamant. If I continue to work at the rate that I have been for the past few months, I will likely suffer an aneurism and die (and so take with me what meagre remnants of journalistic integrity this bastard-arse of a print media landscape can be said to boast).
It won’t do to meet my undoing so suddenly and, as such, I have decided to indulge with a month’s hiatus from serious editorial work in which time I have been advised only to attempt television criticism, fashion blogging and listicles.
I need hardly tell loyal readers that I fully intend to publish nothing of the kind. Give me true stasis or give me death.
While the threat of an explosive clot would deter the faint-hearted, I shall take the leave of absence as an opportunity to remind all who give The Garter Press their attention and their moneys that a paper like this is the life-blood of civil society.
A platform for truly interrogated expression is invaluable, contrary to what the doubters would have you believe. The primrose path of journalism lies not in pandering headlines, that promise reveals beyond the reach of even the grandest merchant of garbage lies.
Those who propound that vulgar school of journalism are charlatans. They would pry these infinitely valuable pages from truly independent and rigorous hands. They are a kind of vampire. They will puncture the virgin flesh of this beautiful media organisation at the neck and drain her dry, like the huns in the propaganda of old. You’re not a vampire, are you? You’re not a hun, are you?
I trust you are neither. May your passion for quality keep you from becoming both, and sustain you in the interim. Seek out quality, wherever it may be, and settle for nothing less.
I am forever yours,
Amanda Huntingslow