For every staffer who joins Newspaper to fulfill a credit requirement or because they didn’t get their first choice elective, there is (probably) at least one more who joined because they grew up watching “Gilmore Girls.”
I started out as someone who belonged to that first category of skeptical staffers, but at some point during my four years on The LASA Liberator, I came around to joining the group of bright-eyed staffers who saw themselves as the heir to Rory Gilmore’s legacy. In fact, I’m now the third outgoing editor in two years to cite “Gilmore Girls” as the impetus for finding a passion in student journalism in their 30, and I hope it isn’t too presumptuous to also suggest that I might have actually become Rory Gilmore, too.
In an eerie case of life imitating art, it hit me while brainstorming ideas for what to write about that I’ve already plagiarized the original source material with my own life story: I was an editor for my school newspaper, raised by a single mother, financially supported by my well-to-do grandparents, and even got into the same colleges as Rory, though I ultimately opted for the Elle Woods path in life.
Regardless, I am proud to look back at my four years in high school and say that I have both joined an esteemed legacy of Rory Gilmore wannabes and come into my own in life as a whole—and I have The LASA Liberator to thank for this. It has become one of the cornerstones of my high school experience and the reason I not only came around to student journalism in the first place, but embraced it and all the opportunities it afforded me.
And as someone who had grown up having to turn down opportunities because of the price tag, the annual chances to be a part of an entirely student-run publication and even attend SXSW and the Texas Tribune festivals for free felt more like once-in-a-lifetime ones for me.
During the peak weeks of the school year, I could be shaking hands and interviewing politicians I had only ever seen on TV, attending world premieres of big-budget Hollywood movies with the cast and crew in attendance, working into the ungodly hours of school nights alongside fellow lead editors to tidy up final print pages, all while getting sweet excuses for extensions and absences.
My top three takeaways from the experience: Talarico has really good PR training, Beto is super nice and super duper tall, and you can walk up to most U.S. senators for an interview with enough confidence and an official press pass that can seemingly get you into almost anywhere.
It was a hustle for sure and more often than not stressful, but there was a reason I kept at it, and it was largely because The LASA Liberator was a place where I could throw myself in the work, take pride and ownership in perfecting my writing and too often cutting it close to print deadlines. More than that, it exposed me to a world of possibilities by letting me get upfront and close to a political and media realm that I thought I could only be a mere spectator of.
Even if I started out as an quiet and reserved freshmen who only joined because I was turned away from jazz band (thank you Mr. East!) like Rory, the school newspaper became the place where my ambitions could outpace my social timidness, where I could find my passion and pursue it to its fullest extent while making connections with incredible people along the way (special shoutouts to Megan, Lasya, and Ethan for being the best co-lead Rorys anyone could ask for) .
I cannot glaze The LASA Liberator enough. Even with the budget constraints of an AISD student newspaper, it has afforded me opportunities I could not have found anywhere else. It was my introduction into the worlds of American journalism and politics and it was my ticket into an institution that gate keeps entrance into these worlds, where I hope I can serve as a testament of the truly transformative power of publications like this one.
