Untacked

8 S U M M E R 2 014 U N TAC K E D EDITOR'S LETTER If A Tree Falls In The Forest… As we sat around the Chronicle's conference room table in Middleburg, Va., and agreed to finally tackle this issue's cover story (p. 32)—a piece we'd all been wanting to publish for ages—I was simultaneously thrilled and nervous. It wouldn't be a particularly controversial topic, nor some shocking exposé, but trepidation still loomed as a buzzkill in the back of my brain. We were finally going to honor pioneering women of horse sport. Great! But now, how? It turned out that I was right to be apprehensive. As our writer assigned to the story, Chris E. Stafford, soon found out, it was going to be much harder to get accurate information about these five indomitable women than we've grown to expect, living in the digital age. I could tell you what the random girl who lived across from me for one semester of college had for breakfast today, but unearthing so much as one quote—from her entire life—from Marjorie Haines Gill, the United States' first Olympic equestri- enne? Good luck. As Chris explains in her author's note at the end of the story, we were shocked to find that national and international federations alike had very little information about many of these groundbreaking female riders—no competitive records, no origi- nal photos. "e sun set on these women's heydays long before the dawn of the digital age, and there is a constantly declining reference available through the generations that knew them well," Chris writes, detailing the challenge set before her. And while the same can't quite be said of the Clarke fam- ily, the subject of this month's profile by staff writer Jennifer B. Calder (p. 44), I soon sensed a parallel: yet another piece we'd been meaning to do forever; yet another subject with a shocking dearth of basic information available in the digital realm. ese experiences have led me to ponder print publications' roles in the digital age with a new perspective, different from the existential contemplations we engage in daily in this business. I've started to wonder, now that the Internet rules the world and will forevermore, if we're stuck with a "If a tree falls in the forest…" type of society from here on out: If you lived before the mod- ern age, and no one's taken the time and effort to add your life's accomplishments to the digital realm, did it ever really happen? Or, if you're alive today but choose not to leave a digital footprint, will future generations even remember you? In short, if your life's not on the Internet, did you ever even exist? We owe it to people like these five intrepid and historic horse- women, and to rare modern-day individuals like the members of the Clarke family, to document the tales of their humanity. is should be the role of the media in the 21 st century—bridging that gap to preservation before it's too late. I deeply regret that we didn't tackle our cover story sooner— back when all five women were alive and healthy, able to convey their own memories in their own voices and surrounded by many more peers and family members who could do the same. But I hope our belated efforts will still serve as valuable contribu- tion to the digital realm and will help future generations connect with these priceless pieces of history. Even the stron- gest, most towering oaks will fall eventu- ally, so we owe it to them to record the sound. —Kat Netzler, Editor SARA LIESER PHOTO

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