Being Noah Tesfaye #23: Why I’m a Proud Journalist

With applications for our school paper now open and JEA being next week, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on my experience being on staff at my school paper, and more importantly, what it’s been like to be a journalist. When our adviser and my English teacher said at the beginning of the year and now with applications that “Journalism is really cool,” I kind of thought he was gassing it up. But no. He was completely right, and in many ways, did not even express how amazing being a journalist really is.

I was talking to two friends yesterday, who go to private school, and they said their school paper was heavily censored and they were not allowed to publish anything political or threatening to the administration. Thankfully, by going to a public school, our paper has the majority of our First Amendment rights available to publish nearly anything we want. This has led us to pursue stories ranging from school segregation, to the presidential election, all without any censorship.

Being a journalist has meant pursuing stories that you may not want to go out and pursue, but knowing it is the right thing to do to pursue it. There are also moments where you want to publish a story or information that will not fit in an article, yet you know that it is something the school needs to hear. These daily conversations in our class brings all…