Personal Narrative

Simulated skydiving in Australia. Hiking the Matterhorn. I couldn’t imagine doing those things in hiking boots, let alone a wedding dress. Yet there sat school counselor Mrs. Jennifer Salvage on February 2, regaling me with her exploits as a world-traveling bride as I scribbled notes in my reporter’s notebook.

“This little girl came running and did a leap into my arms for a bear hug. So the shots with her, it’s one of my favorite moments ever because it was such a genuine connection,” Salvage said, as she examined a portrait of herself set in a dimly-lit pool hall in Cairo, Egypt.

She wore her wedding dress around the world being photographed by her husband, posing for her husband’s photographs in locations I had to pinpoint on a map—Dublin, the Seychelles, Kotor. That white dress was able to overcome multiple language barriers through the hospitality of complete strangers and their curiosity to learn her story.

In our school newspaper workshops for budding reporters, I use this story to impart the importance of journalism.

“Our goal,” I stress, “is to tell stories like that. You might not know that your counselor travels the world in her wedding dress if not for this paper. Telling stories is how we give voice to the community.”

What I mention less often is that it was one of the first articles I had ever written, and freshman-me had no idea how to condense all 30-minutes of her interview into LQTQ. I was terrified I would compromise the picture of her character by using the wrong quotes.

Journalistic integrity ensures our community’s trust, and once I learned how important it was to uphold, I began to apply that integrity to all corners of my life. In math class, I work hard to understand a problem first and check the answer key second, despite the fact that math has always been harder for me than English.

Some of my more STEM-inclined friends were confused on why I’d take difficult math classes in the first place if I was better at writing. Was it because there’s supposedly no money to be made in the humanities? 

So naturally, it was my duty as a student journalist to tell them why through an article.

Together, an editor and I wrote an opinion on the friction between STEM and humanities at our school, which was exemplified by our administration’s decision to cut AP Literature  to one semester despite disapproval from the teacher running the class. Previously, it had been a full year. That teacher was the first to ever thank me for writing a story—until then, I hadn’t realized the power of my words. 

“I appreciate you drawing on a variety of sources to form the basis for your own conclusions in this opinion piece. I was impressed,” the teacher said in his email to us. “Keep up the good work.” 

I teared up when I first read his email. It took so much time to get all the sources for that story, and as we wrote it, I genuinely thought we were the only ones who cared at all. We pride ourselves on diversity of viewpoints with journalistic integrity, but sometimes all it takes is for one student to throw our hard work in the literal trash can to feel like it’s all worthless.

That first “thank you” made me realize the weight of responsibility we have as journalists.

Now that I’m editor-in-chief of the paper, I encourage all staffers to write with at least three sources. We’ve made a concerted effort to source underrepresented voices, which we track through a coverage audit. When reporters ask why we go through all this effort, I mention this email. 

We are a club, which means there’s no academic integrity contract that forces you to follow your promises. We can’t penalize our staffers for not adhering to ethics, or even when they skip meetings. 

It’s my job to make sure that this job is fun, and to convince them that being a good journalist is worth all of the hard work. It means that when I show up to meetings, I show up energetically. It means I always write with three sources or more, and I go out of my way to have uncomfortable conversations with strangers. If I look like I don’t care about upholding integrity, they won’t either. 

That integrity challenges me to be diligent in every aspect of my life, not just with the newspaper. Showing accountability in my classes and in orchestra rehearsals that I have perfect attendance for, those all build my credibility. 

Even if our paper ends up in some trash cans, it means the world to me if we can accurately tell the story of just one person and make a positive impact in their life. While I can’t yet hike the Matterhorn, I can challenge every other obstacle through a lens of journalistic integrity.

“The people we choose to interview are as much of a bias as the words we write. Even if it feels like no one is watching, our work does have an impact,” I remind our reporters during those Tuesday staff meetings. And every time I say it, they sit up a little straighter. I do, too.