Personal Essay
I grew up in a household where the news was part of the daily ritual. Weeknight dinners unfolded alongside the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung. Each morning my parents retrieved The Montgomery Journal and The Gazette from the end of the driveway before the school day began.
My parents, both FDA reviewers, treated journalism as a civic responsibility. When a story in The Washington Post exposed a pharmaceutical scandal, they would cut out the article, slide it across the table, and attach a small Post-it note that read: “Do something with your life that matters and ends up in the newspaper.”
Whether it was Berkeley’s history with the Free Speech Movement or the moment I stood in line outside The New York Times building on September 12, 2001 to pick up the morning edition, journalism has shaped the way I understand public life.
Accurate reporting, local accountability, and thoughtful storytelling remain essential to how communities understand themselves and navigate moments of change.