The Heart of Journalism

I stumbled into freshman year with a love of ‘50s sci-fi short stories and a manila folder brimming with unfinished horror novels scrawled on printer paper. It’s no surprise I signed up for every writing class.

Back then, I had a brazen confidence in my work. I had spent three years of middle school recess hunched over crumpled notebook pages, drafting ugly prose. I was known as the kid who wrote, which to me, stood out as a unique interest amongst a graduating class of 13. I couldn’t have guessed what high school had in store for me.

I still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach as current alumni and previous editor-in-chief of the Pigeon Press, Shambahva Shrikanth, cut entire paragraphs from my first ever journalism assignment. Watching my article divided into bite sized-pieces instilled the unnerving sense that I had missed something crucial.

The months ahead were challenging. I shunned the craft of journalism for what I didn’t understand about it: a retroactively ironic decision considering its mission. But I had yet to grow into that understanding, and spent much of my freshman year playing online chess and putting more energy into thinking about how to avoid my work than doing it.

If it weren’t for the editorial, I might have never learned. Through the opinion piece, my talent shined (or at least I thought so). I was elated to have some respite from the limitations of journalistic writing, and editorials allowed for a shred of my beloved descriptive writing to return. I wrote my first piece on the card game Magic: The Gathering, and my thoughts on the newly released expansion set. I remember how much easier it was to sit in front of my laptop and write when I felt so deeply invested in the subject.

Over time, I learned to love the other parts of journalism. When we read Jennifer Senior’s reporting for The Atlantic on a grieving family 20 years after the loss of their son on 9/11, I was captivated by her command of emotion. The way writers such as Senior succeeded under such intense constraints reminded me of the puzzles I loved to solve as a kid, each piece finding its place in the bigger picture.

That, I’ve come to realize, is the palpitating heart of journalistic writing. The aforementioned mission: a complete loyalty to the truth such that you can discard all lenses, and devote yourself to the reasoning and emotions of your reader using only facts.

Over this next year, I hope to get as close to this heart of journalism as possible, to provide the school community with a resource for information and hopefully insight. I look forward to all of the wonderful writing we get to do for you, the bonds between new class members and most of all communicating with a creative and inquisitive student body who deserve to have their opinions and work uplifted.