Journalism has been a part of my heart since I was 16. It’s who I am. It’s shaped my understanding of people and c changed how I perceive the world.
I have always been curious about everything. I think that’s why I liked to read so much as a kid – I could see things from another person’s perspective. I was also always interested in the lives of other kids like me who lived in different countries. I wondered what it would be like to go to school in the U.K., Mexico, India or Japan. You name the place, I probably wondered about and researched what it was like to live there. Combine that with my passion for writing and my unwavering need to help people, and you’ve got my love for journalism.
When I came to Gannon, I made it my ultimate goal to be editor-in-chief of The Knight. Since I joined as a staff writer and eventually became a member of the editorial board, this organization and the people who are a part of it have burrowed their way very deeply into my heart. On this staff you will find some of the most passionate and hard-working students on this campus, as well as some young people who have an authentic passion for journalism.
That, I’ve noticed, is hard to find these days. I have only met a handful of people my age who are passionate about and believe in journalism, especially in an age in which journalism is evolving into something with an end product that has yet to be seen. The digitalization of the world has left journalism between a rock and a hard place, and up until recent years, it looked as if it was a dying field. But I have seen firsthand that it is, in fact, not.
Journalism is safe in the hands of Gen Z and the generations after. The Knight’s editor-in-chief, Chloe Forbes, is proof of this. In under a year, she played a major role in transforming The Knight from a printed newspaper with a website that looked like it hadn’t been updated since 2002 into a digital news platform that students are now engaging with – and in numbers we haven’t seen before. She took her own knowledge of social media, the digital age and journalism’s professional standards and helped to create a college news source that provides accurate and factual news to its readers. To me, she embodies good journalism.
I’ve been thinking an awful lot lately about my relationship with journalism. For a while, I considered attending graduate school for journalism, but I realized that a career in the field isn’t in the cards for me. At first, I thought that meant the work I’d done to make myself a better journalist over the last three years was all for naught, but that isn’t the case. As I transition into law school and my career in the legal field, I know my experience in journalism and the skills and knowledge I have gained by working for The Knight and taking classes in the discipline will help me. My ability to dig deeper into issues and find the real story will provide me the means to discern facts in a case that others might not see.
Even though my career might not be in journalism, what I learned and how I have grown as a result will continue to impact my life and my career for years to come.

MADELINE BRUCE

[email protected]