In my time as the Leisure Editor, I have had so much fun continuously discovering Baltimore through the eyes of my writers and my own new experiences. I relish the opportunity to celebrate Baltimore in any way that I can because it is such a wonderful city.
This semester I considered ways to better achieve this goal and serve our readership. The News-Letter returning to print and us creating a The News-Letter TikTok profile in the same month is not only ironic but also makes an interesting point about the role of the newspaper amidst the current media landscape. How do we get people to stay excited about the things we’re covering amidst all the other information they receive?
With all of this in mind, I’ve decided to add some new features to the Leisure section to help us accomplish our goal of showing you the best of Baltimore’s food and fun. I’m excited to introduce the JHU News-Letter Leisure Interactive Food Map. This map displays all the food reviews we have published since the Leisure section, formerly called the “Your Weekend” section, began in 2015. I owe Leisure’s Contributing Writer Habin Hwang a special shoutout for reminding me that we should pursue this.
Putting this map together was weirdly bittersweet. As I scrolled back through our many pages of articles on the website, I felt a strange nostalgia for the college experience that none of us, frankly, will ever get to have. Although it wasn’t very long ago in the grand scheme of things, the true collegiate essence of just finding out what people are doing for fun is something I’d also like to restore to the section.
As a senior, I’ve lost one too many valuable semesters where I could have gone out to one more Sunday brunch, late-night bar crawl or local festival. But even in the bleaker days when there were no bars or restaurants to patron, the section stayed afloat with reminders of how to enjoy yourself even in dark times.
The way this map serves as a time capsule is really cool, and it’s endearing to see that some favorite student hotspots have retained their status over the years.
In addition to the map, I recently started publishing a weekly email newsletter that contains all the latest happenings from my Events this weekend articles. I felt that, if the exciting events I share were coming directly to your inbox, you might be more aware and more excited to learn more about them. You can fill out this short form to be added to my mailing list.
I hope that these new initiatives benefit you in some way, and I hope they inspire you to try something new and make the best memories you can in your short time here.
