Editor’s Desk: Loving the City with the San Francisco Foghorn

I spoke with Megan Robertson the morning before Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. But later that afternoon, Roberston wouldn’t be watching the game along with everyone else — she would start making a newspaper.

Robertson is the editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Foghorn, the official student newspaper of the University of San Francisco. As part of their production schedule, they make their paper on Sunday and Monday afternoons.

While the 49ers would end up losing 25-22, that was only part of the reason I wanted to speak with someone from San Francisco for this edition of my editor’s desk — some of the best friends that I’ve made in college and my girlfriend all hail from the City of Fog.

Robertson, a Georgia native, said that when she was looking for schools, she was torn between the allure of a larger campus or a smaller city school.

“USF is a mixture of both where it is kind of like the centralized point of the city, but because it’s been there so long, they’re able to maintain a small campus,” the 22-year-old said. 

Like Loyola, USF is a Jesuit institution but was founded in 1855. But as physical cities, Chicago and San Francisco are extremely different. 

Chicago features a shoreline of 28 miles alongside the fifth largest body of freshwater. San Francisco on the other hand is just 7 by 7 miles — but still runs along the largest and one of the most beautiful oceans, the Pacific.

“It’s so stunning to have the ocean and all the hills and the downtown like in the Victorian homes,” said Robertson, 22. “There’s something so beautiful about the composition of the city.”

A lot of times, the city is a large part of the reason students choose their school, but I don’t think I realized how important the Chicago aspect of Loyola was until I was really living it. Taking the Red Line downtown and walking between the city wind tunnels has become such a big part of my everyday life that was hard to anticipate four years ago.

Another thing I didn’t predict about my college experience was seeing my name in a paper every week. When I enrolled at Loyola, I honestly didn’t even know what The Phoenix was.

When Robertson committed to USF, she had already decided she was going to double major in media studies with an emphasis in journalism, and performing arts and social justice with an emphasis in theater. And the SF Foghorn was one of the first groups she joined.

“It’s a really cool physical manifestation of the news and what’s happening on campus,” Robertson said. “Being able to document that is pretty interesting.”

As much stress as The Loyola Phoenix creates in my life, I love having a physical product in the middle of every week to distribute to the university community. 

In our Valentine’s Day issue, you can read a lovely story about professors who are married to other Loyola professors. In opinion, we have a treasure trove of stories about self-love, relationships, friendships and a heart condition.

Thank you again to Robertson for meeting on your first day of production to talk about our love for our cities.

This Valentine’s Day, be sure to tell everyone around you how much you love them. To my San Francisco friends Marielle, Bella, Danny, Sam, Joe and Isabelle — I love you guys.

Featured image courtesy of Isabella Moss