I often think of a quote by Andrew Vachss that says “Journalism is what maintains democracy. It’s the force of progressive social change.” I have been involved in journalism for quite a few years, but out of all the positions I have worked under, none of them were as interesting as working as a reporter. 

The ability that a reporter has to invoke change is amazing. When Obama became the first black president, the New York Times published the headline, “Obama: Racial Barrier Falls In Heavy Turnout.” While the United States still has a long way to come with our racial problems, the effect that this headline and other similar ones around the country is still being felt today.  

The process that you have to go through in order to write a story is quite exciting. During this semester I covered an array of stories, from the inauguration of the new student body president to the climate change conversation that started in the UNK community after President Biden’s executive actions enacted early in his presidency. 

All of the stories that I covered made me step outside of my box and that was the fun part of it. For example, I had never attended the UNK talent show before, but after taking on the story this semester, I needed to attend and it turned out to be pretty exciting! 

I wrote a story about new equipment that the UNK Art Department received, and I learned that the equipment was modified and upgraded to benefit the department in even more ways by Professor Matt Ziemke. I went into the story having a different angle than the published story, but the angle was switched right after I found out that the art equipment was customized.

The past four years have greatly shaped the way news media is viewed by the general public. I noticed people trusted the media less. I remember talking to a friend about the fact that I had enrolled in this class and he told me to “report the truth” and then proceeded to say “there’s a lot of fake news today.” It shocked me because I never thought about reporting anything but the truth. I shrugged off the comment because I knew that even after these turbulent few years, the press kept going, papers were published, and headlines were read. The world continued to be covered by journalists.