Reporter Balances Objectivity, Personal Experience

Even before I arrived at Columbia, I knew I wanted to get involved with the newspaper. After a terrific experience on my high school weekly, I couldn’t imagine going through college without being on a paper. As I began freshman year, I dutifully joined Spectator Facebook groups, attended open houses, and blew off homework to take stories. Spec quickly became my primary outlet of engagement with the campus and community.

At first, I was happy just to be connected somehow to the news. The prospect of challenging state senators and University administrators, attending press conferences at City Hall, and wearing my Spectator-manufactured (counterfeit) press pass was immediately exciting. I became a deputy news editor and was assigned to the crime beat—which was as disturbing as it was rewarding.

But I became troubled by the inherently detached nature of reporting. After a while, I began to crave engagement on another level. Though the journalist is meant to be an objective observer, I couldn’t help but identify with the subjects of my stories. I decided not to reapply for an editor position, difficult as it was to sever myself from the crucial work of examining and providing information.

What I will miss most from my old job is the opportunity to interact with decision makers. Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, the people who seem to have the most access to public figures are those who do not intend to use the access to pursue their own agendas or opinions. Likewise, for me, the biggest cost of reporting was this sacrifice of personal perspective—absorbing my identity as a student and as a native New Yorker into my reporter role.

But removing myself from the Spec’s daily grind allows me to grapple with questions raised by a year and a half of reporting and editing. Reflection is often difficult for those caught in the whirlwind pace of a newspaper, so I aim to give you a backstory to articles and consider the issues they raise for the journalists involved. And while I’m uncertain about many of the issues, I hope to bring you my thoughts on a few of them in this column.