We took a vacation last week and now you might be taking one this weekend, so let's try to catch you up on a couple of our most recent episodes.
Marcela was part of a team of writers from the editorial section of The Boston Globe, who were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for a series of editorials about how Boston can improve student learning.
We talked to Marcela about the series, the work that goes into reporting and writing, and her advice for students with aspirations of writing op-eds and editorials.
Among the things she told us: Even a Pulitzer finalist thinks writing is hard.
I love reporting Mark. I could talk to people all day.
I overreport things left and right. That is my basic problem. I have yet to figure out a happy medium … I have a gazillion pages of interviews and what am I picking? What am I not picking?
Writing is the hardest part for me of the whole process. I enjoy reporting. I enjoy talking to people. I enjoy finding things about people, the research aspect of it. I love it. I could have been an FBI agent for sure. But then the writing part is what is. just harrowing for me because I know how hard it is to write.
I'm always very hard on myself to get that sentence right, to get that kicker in perfect, fine tune that lead, the nutgraf. I am always swimming in ideas. My problem is what can I get to realistically speaking the fastest, by deadline?
That said, Marcela's advice for journalists was …
Do not get discouraged because the profession needs journalists. This country needs journalists more and more and more. It's so easy to look at the state of affairs, to look at the assault on free press and say no, thank you. I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna have to deal with this.
Do not get discouraged. If you know that this is your calling, pursue it. And, look for people like me. I always tell people, do not be afraid to reach out to me or to someone whose work you admire or someone whose work you want to replicate. I'm always happy to meet with people and to talk to them. Because sometimes that's all you need to keep going
What's an area that a young journalist could look to fill?
Reporting about vulnerable populations, is always a huge area that needs more and more reporting. If you are just starting in journalism, meet people where they are, go to where the vulnerable populations are and try to immerse yourself in them.
Our other recent interview is with Journalism Education Association Student Journalist of the Year Alan Tai.
Alan just won the Journalism Education Association's Student Journalist of the Year award as a senior at Monta Vista High School in California.
Alan talked about his experiences on the student newspaper, El Estoque as an editor-in-chief and also as a writer of features and op-eds. He explained what the school's journalism program is like and how it successfully deals with school administration. He also shared lessons he learned and offered tips to guide future editors-in-chief.
One lesson was …
Just all the responsibilities that were piled up because of the role …
In this EIC position now, we had to worry about things like finances and, production with the printing company and stuff like that. And so this is all stuff that was very unexpected for me.
Because I never envisioned journalism as la management job. I always just, thought about the writing part, but there was so much more to it. And so being EIC, having to manage all the little things that go into making the magazine that people don't see right away, that was definitely the tough part.
Does it leave him with the thought of sticking to writing?
Actually I think it might have done a bit of the opposite where now that I've done a bit of everything. I know that journalism isn't just about the writing, it's also about the people who are taking the photos, who are designing the webpage.
Now that I have this broader idea of what journalism is, I think it motivates me to try those out more in the future and, go beyond the writing.
Alan had advice for student journalists, particularly aspiring editors-in-chief.
It's very, very important to document things, right? So every time you make a new decision within that editorial board, you should document it. You have those different ethical situations, legal situations, how you approach them, all written down in one place so that future teams, they have something to reference, something to fall back on and don't necessarily have, the burden of making all those decisions themselves.
You're gonna have things like, for example, a faculty member dying that will happen from time to time and you wanna know how you wanna handle that situation. So it's good to have precedent available for future years.
Coming soon we’ll be talking to José Ignacio Castañeda Perez an immigration reporter for Spotlight Delaware, Hanaa' Tameez, who covers the future of journalism for Nieman Journalism Lab, and Angilee Shah, CEO and editor-in-chief of Charlottesville (VA) Tomorrow. Be sure to keep following and listening!
Thanks for reading The Journalism Salute. This post is public so feel free to share it.