You could say I’ve always been a storyteller. My childhood was irrevocably shaped by the 2016 election, and to cope with the polarization I couldn’t escape, I drew political cartoons. In a chickenscratch scrawl, I chronicled the epic misadventures of figures like former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and current pariah Mike Pence. The cartoons weren’t very good, frankly- but I still recall the immeasurable joy I found in taking moments of anguish and turning them into moments of triumph. Instead of ruminating on the despair I felt during President Trump’s speeches, I used levity and as much wit as a nine year old could muster to come to terms with the situation. Over the years, I’ve kept that philosophy close to my heart- and pen.

Eight years later, and I feel like this country is back where we were in 2016, only this time, with the looming threat of environmental collapse ever nearer, and countries like the Philippines and Hungary joining us on the road to fascism. My own home country, France, is reeling from a rise in fascism and racism due to the efforts of the Rassemblement national, or National Rally. Last summer, I studied abroad in Brittany, the region where my family is from, and while I was there, I heard news of a 12 year old Jewish girl being sexually assaulted in Paris. I was scrolling through my phone, waiting in line to get some coffee with my friends, when I came across the Le Monde article and nearly fell to my knees. When my friends asked me what had happened, I showed them the article, which recounted how her attackers had hurled antisemitic slurs at her during the assault. They shrugged it off. 

I was aghast. I couldn’t look them in the eye after that. I wondered what was wrong with people these days- why, when asked, I’d relay news of yet another bombing of Gaza or developments in the Yemeni Civil War and people would say “c’est la vie.” This wasn’t just in France, either. When I was met with the same kinds of platitudes as I returned home, I knew I had my finger on the pulse of a global phenomenon.

My generation is desensitized. We are the children of the 24 hour news cycle, of mass school shootings and classrooms drowned out by the sound of Amber Alerts on our phones. We are never free from the world’s sorrows, and I decided a long time ago that if I couldn’t be at peace, I would be informed. Over the past two years, it has been my prerogative to inform myself and others about the horrors and splendors alike of our modern world for my school newspaper. Whether it’s covering a nationwide protest movement or reporting on student journalists fighting for their First Amendment right to freedom of the press, I’m on the ground, observing with a keen eye and an open mind. 

Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau held in his Discourse on Inequality that in order for mankind to progress, reason must fall second to passion. It is my ambition that my work builds on this idea through arming readers with facts and disarming with empathy.

Story One: Failure of Democrats to appeal to immigrant voters cost them the election

My exigence for writing this opinion piece was former President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential election. While I was initially thrilled at the prospect of a younger candidate who hadn’t always been a career politician, I was ultimately dismayed by how the campaign was run, because it preached to the choir. Gen-Z, non-immigrant voters were solidly in favor of Harris from the beginning, and I thought her rhetoric demonstrated a lack of attention to the expressed needs of naturalized voters. When political elites in this country are accused of forming an intelligentsia that disregards the needs of the common man, these accusations are well founded, and I wanted to provide an opinion on why she lost that was informed by the cultural context mainstream media outlets miss. You could take the easy route and say America doesn’t trust female leaders because of deeply entrenched misogyny, and that wouldn’t be entirely false. But I thought the existing coverage of this issue was myopic, and I wanted to address other possible reasons for her loss that could’ve been actionable.

Story Two: For second time this month, 50501 supporters rally at Texas Capitol

I suppose I should preface this with the fact that, technically, I beat MSNBC to this story- we had the same subject for a story my school newspaper published a couple of hours prior. The subject in question was veteran and former Denali National Park ranger Kristen Jenn, who was fired as a result of the Department of Governmental Efficiency’s cuts to civil service positions. Being a park ranger was her dream job, and her story truly resonated with me. This story feels especially prescient as a result of the Trump administration cutting funding for PBS and NPR. In retrospect, it was a harbinger of things to come.

Story Three: Modern female pop stardom necessitates conformity

Political coverage is my modus operandi, so writing cultural commentary was new territory for me. All my life, I’ve loved reading music reviews, and my favorite reviews are the kind that situate themselves between political and musical commentary. This particular opinion piece addressed a longstanding belief I’ve held that the music industry uplifts women who conform to societal beauty standards that ultimately harm other women. I wanted to subvert the common characterization of the music industry as progressive, and investigate the ways in which it pays lip service to feminism while not actually implementing it in a modern sense.

Story Four: An ephemeral ceasefire

This is a sibling story to a news article I wrote last year on the conflict in Gaza and how it impacted students at my school. For this opinion piece, I wanted to establish a link between the ceasefire and the political benefits both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu experienced from it. While I was immensely familiar with American politics prior to writing this piece, for this article I had to research Israeli politics fairly extensively before writing it, so I could see if my hypothesis was correct- that divisions in the Knesset rendered Netanyahu’s majority vulnerable. It was.

Story Five: Austin-area student journalists seek legislative support for student press freedom

I was really proud of this story because I got to cover fellow student journalists reaching out to their elected officials and speaking up for a cause they believe in. As a student journalist, I think I’m uniquely positioned to take student activism seriously, because I know how difficult advocacy is on top of schoolwork, extracurriculars, and maintaining jobs. This story also allowed me to delve into the finer points of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, Tinker v. Des Moines, and constitutional law. The importance of the latter has shown up over and over again in my political reporting, and I was grateful for the in-depth knowledge these student activists shared. I take every story as an opportunity to learn more about the world around me, and this story is an exemplar of that.