Two years ago if you were to ask me my dream I’d say become the next Bob Woodward. After years of being obsessed with Nixon administration films, shout out to All the President’s Men and The Post, I joined the LASA Liberator my sophomore year in hopes of starting my long and successful career in investigative journalism. I came into the Lib wanting to focus on facts, news, and investigation. So, leaving this wonderful team as a Student Life editor who loved feature stories, I’m glad to say I did not live up to my expectations.
My first stories led me to focus on impressive interviews and genius questions in an attempt to uncover a deep meaning within the industries or events I was tasked to write about. It was only until I was given my greatest assignment yet that I found my true love for journalism. For “Humans of LASA”, inspired by Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York”, I interviewed Jasmine Tea who had the famous last words “I’m not very interesting.” If she wasn’t while performing live music and playing ultimate frisbee, she was running her popular etsy jewelry account. So to me, she was one of the coolest interviews I’ve ever had and every time I received praise for the story I’d shoot it over to her. It was only after the story she began to understand she was wrong. It was the first time I directly saw the power journalism had to make people understand their significance.
My love for feature stories led me to study with the New York Times in the summer after my first year on the paper. Suddenly, I wasn’t asking students their hobbies but instead asking intimidating New Yorker’s about their lives and heritage. It was then in Central Park that I had my favorite interview in my journalistic career and one of the most significant conversations of my life. I found myself interviewing a college student named Sara who started off the conversation with the same old “I’m not that interesting.”
For Sara, New York was her home in the sense that it never contained a singular culture that defined her, something she felt absent within her southern college. To escape her alienation, she ventured back home to the city after transferring. A decision she faced at her brother-in-law’s wedding day when listening to her fellow bridesmaids’ excitement in their futures and discovering she didn’t feel that same anticipation. When I thanked her for speaking to me in the middle of what seemed to be a peaceful picnic, she shocked me by thanking me right back for making her feel her story was significant.
It was then I discovered the phenomenal reality that I didn’t face any luck with my interviews but rather faced the truth of every human being’s beautiful and tragic story to tell. All it took was curiosity, and perseverance after hundreds of interview rejections, to discover them.
A few months ago I faced the unfortunate lesson to never meet your heroes when attending Bob Woodward’s book signing at the Paramount Theater. Showered in questions of politics and the singular defining event of his life, it wasn’t the lack of variety in his conversation that made me change my perspective but rather a quick disregard of a fan who praised him by saying “I became a journalist because of you.” Instead of feeling fulfillment or any sense of appreciation for the man’s life he changed before him, Woodward shrugged him off and met with the next person in line. It was then I realized I luckily had a different perspective of journalism than my old icon.
For me, journalism wasn’t meant to discover the secrets of the rich and powerful but give voice to the unheard and ignored. Although I may never find myself writing another article, I will forever carry that message with me and the skills to make someone feel valued.
