When I was younger, journalism was a sea of reporters surrounding closed doors, threatening to drown out anyone who dared to exit with a wave of intrusive questions. Journalism was the pages in my great-grandfather’s print newspaper that I would flip past to finally, finally reach the comics section, leaving smudged ink on my fingertips. Journalism was evenings spent watching Rachel Maddow with my father, struggling to keep my eyes open. So, naturally, when I signed up for the Foundations of Journalism class my freshman year of high school, I wasn’t necessarily certain it was the right place for me.

 

Just like many student journalists prior to joining their staff, I was an incredibly shy kid. In fact, outside of school, I was working with my therapist on combating my social anxiety. The only reason I had joined the class was because of my passions for writing and art. My middle school English teacher, Mr. Nasafi, encouraged me to give it a chance.

 

As the months passed, one story in particular solidified that the newsroom was where I wanted to be for the next four years. 

 

Our assignment was to write an in-depth news piece. I decided to write about a plan the Trump administration was working on at the time. It would make it so that a person’s gender would be assigned from genitalia at birth and virtually unchangeable after that. I wanted to explain the very complicated proposal to make it comprehensible to the general public. I also wanted to showcase trans student voices and how this would affect them. Once the article was complete, I sent it to the students I interviewed. 

 

To my surprise, one wrote back.

“Wow, this is a very powerful article. I really appreciate you did something like this, out of everything you could have written about, especially since that hits so close to home for me.”

 

From that moment forward, I learned two things. One was the importance of diversity and amplifying people’s stories. Not only can it help them feel heard, which is so powerful for people who have been constantly marginalized, but it can help other people hear them as well, changing minds and getting new perspectives.

 

The other lesson I learned was that journalism was so much more than nosy reporters and comic strips. It was a way to make a change, a way to help people. It was what I wanted to do. So, I challenged myself to keep writing, to keep talking to strangers, to keep going out of my comfort zone. At the end of the year, I eagerly applied for a position on our print newspaper and got in as both a reporter and designer, making me one of the limited few in the history of the publication who has taken on both.

 

As the years went on, the goals I set in FOJ carried into my journalistic work. 

 

I wanted to give marginalized people a voice, so I took on heavy stories, making my sources feel comfortable but not afraid to ask tough questions. I wrote about sexual harassment, amplified Indigenous voices, and organized a series on student experiences at Black Lives Matter protests.

 

I wanted to make complicated information, like COVID-19 and anti-trans legislation in Iowa, easy to understand, so I struggled through high-level scientific papers and dense House and Senate files. This goal in particular landed me the position of Print News Editor my junior year, which gave me the opportunity to pass this vision on to new staffers.

 

I wanted to change the way people see journalists, so I handled all of the stories I was assigned with extreme care. I never wanted to make sources feel misrepresented or imposed upon. I never wanted students at our school to see journalism as something boring. As a result, I created engaging designs to draw the readers in and multimedia for web content to keep people’s attention. I selected stories for my section, and later on for the entire paper, to keep students interested and represented.

 

Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to help new staffers feel welcome. I looked at myself in the mirror and found that journalism had completely changed who I am for the better. I was more confident, I was more outspoken, I was more empathetic, and somehow, to my surprise, I was a leader. It gave me a community that I felt safe in, that I could comfortably grow in to become all of these things. I wanted to create that space for others, and in my time as Co-Editor-in-Chief I‘ve worked hard to check in on everyone, lead fun staff-bonding activities, and most importantly show compassion and a growth mindset. I have been able to pass down the lessons and values I have learned in this profession to the next generation, and I will continue to use these skills for the rest of my life, no matter what field I go into.

 

These days, journalism is the chaotic calm of our exporting worknights, the sound of staffers reading articles aloud and laughing amongst themselves. Journalism is late nights with my eyes wide open, glued to the screen as I add the finishing touches to my project in hopes that it will reach so many people and make so much change. Journalism is the best part of my day, and I’m incredibly lucky that I found the right place for me.