Sprezzatura

The Italians have this thing called "sprezzatura." It's what our Italian friend referred to when, stomping around Rome earlier this year, we marveled at the perfectly "thrown together" model types traipsing down the Via del Corso.

While our dear guide Francesco couldn't give us a direct translation, he described it as the art of making that which is hard seem easy.

A Google search later, we found that it originated in Baldassare Castiglione's 16th-century Il Cortegiano. Castiglione describes the term as "an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions, which hides the conscious effort that went into them."

While Castiglione encourages courtiers to have an air of sprezzatura, I have found no better way to describe that which The Rockbridge Report embodies. The Web site is streamlined, and the anchors calmly smile, but rockbridgereport.wlu.edu and our corresponding newscast are the weekly products of hours upon hours of plain hard work from a small group of students. Every story is student-written, student-filmed, student-edited and student-produced.

That's why you'll notice a new feature to our Web site this week -- photos and short bios of the reporters and producers who strive to provide the Rockbridge area with the best journalism possible. We're putting faces to names and showing you who we are.
Hope you enjoy meeting us.

- Monica Chinn