Kevin 
Lynch

It’s hard to say when my journalism career really “began.”

    I still remember frantically filling out my form for elective courses during the final minutes of the eighth grade electives fair, hastily checking off the box for Journalistic Writing 1 as my family members stood impatiently beside me.

    I still remember walking into the first day of my journalism class as a shy and overwhelmed freshman, accidentally sitting far closer to a group of rowdy upperclassmen than I would have liked. 

    I still remember my first interview, seated nervously across a lab table from my Honors Biology teacher while trying my very darndest to make it look like I wasn’t actively sweating from every orifice of my body. 

    I still remember designing my first page, staring blankly at the screen of my InDesign document while mentally deliberating the best way to ask someone around me how to insert a text box.

    There are lots of places where my journalistic career started, but in all honesty, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to pinpoint a specific, grand moment when it really began.

    Instead, it began in the small moments in between: it began when I inserted my first text box without having to google step-by-step instructions first. It began when I looked at the quotes from that first interview and began piecing together what the hell “quoteworthy” meant. It began when I finally started talking to the upperclassmen next to me, transforming them from intimidating strangers to some of my best friends and collaborators. And it began when I walked into my counselor’s office that spring with “Journalistic Writing 3” proudly checked off on my list of classes for next year, choosing the course not out of a stressful time-crunch but out of a genuine passion for the medium and an earnest desire to continue. 

    Over the span of just one year, I picked up more useful skills than I ever thought I would in a school setting, and I felt practically unstoppable. Before I knew it, I no longer felt like the quiet freshman who had slunk into Room 216 on the first day of school. All of a sudden, I had things to say, and more importantly, a means of saying it. I was an active part of my school community, serving the interests of parents, students, and staff alike with important work that was making a difference in the school around me.

    If I wanted, I could simply say “...and the rest is history,” and end my little monologue right at its beginning. After all, I’m here, aren’t I? I got my happily ever after; I learned how to put my writing abilities to good use and had made it as a journalist. The hard part, it seemed, was over.

This, of course, couldn’t have been further than the truth; I was still in the frying pan, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was still consistently cranking up the heat. 

With each new challenge that was thrown at me — whether it be something as innocuous as a typo or something as impactful as COVID-19 — I could feel my built-in skills faltering. In spite of this, as the difficulty of my stories and tasks increased, however, so did my proficiency and confidence.

This is because, over the course of the past several years, I would hardly be lying when I say that I’ve even learned more than I did during that first year of Journalism 1. Rather than clicking around randomly while trying to figure out how to insert a text box, I learned how to watch over someone else’s shoulder and help them add in a text box. I sat in on an interview with someone else and learned to sit back to aid them as they fought back their own flop sweat. I watched as a new student walked into the doors of the journalism room and learned to welcome them into the program with open arms. And I learned to recommend, without any hesitation whatsoever, that younger staff members continue their journey on staff.

    When I was a freshman, I genuinely thought that every single drop of knowledge I would need for the rest of my life was contained safely within the confines of Mr. Block’s curriculum; I thought that if I simply mastered every skill taught to me, then I would walk out as the kind of writer that I always dreamed of being. 

    Little did I realize, however, that after four years, I would walk out as the kind of person I always dreamed of being.

    The kind of person who is always there to lend a hand when you need it. The kind of person you can laugh with in the podcast studio after the final pages have been sent to press. The kind of person that will be remembered in a place for reasons outside of a scrap of paper hanging on a wall. 

    Journalism has allowed me to improve so many things. It has improved my writing. It has improved my design and editing skills. Perhaps most importantly of all, it has improved the lives of community members whose stories I’ve told and whose voices I’ve made heard. 

    More than anything, though, it has improved me in ways that I can’t begin to put to paper.

    My journalism career began a long time ago now, it’s true, but every time I look at a staff member’s work that I helped contribute to, if I squint long and hard enough, I think I can see it beginning again there too.