This article is part of Central Times’ participation in day two of Scholastic Journalism Week: Leaders in Journalism. Kate Johnson is the Profiles Editor of the Central Times and plans on majoring in Journalism in college.
“I started being interested in journalism my freshman year of high school. I started writing in middle school, and we would do a lot of creative writing, but I never really liked it. I liked writing, but I didn’t like the creative part of it. I wanted to write facts. That’s when I got into my freshman year and I found the newspaper at my school, and so then my sophomore year, I signed up for the journalism class and that’s where it all started, at the Ink Spot. That was the name of [my old school’s] newspaper.
I just fell in love with journalism from the very start. I loved the fact that I could write facts and I could inform other people, and I loved the vibe of the newsroom. Journalism has so many different [things], it’s so multimedia. You can take pictures, you can write, you can edit, there are just so many options.
[The reason that I went into journalism] was my teacher of the journalism class. Once I started it, he was just, he was just an amazing teacher. He was very supportive. Any questions I had about writing, he answered them. That kind of support led me into loving journalism. I just knew when I started writing my first article, that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Journalism is important because I feel like it’s the best way for people to learn new information. I think that America thrives on journalism. When you go to look up information on the internet, you’re clicking on articles from newspapers. Not only can journalism be newsy, but it can also be personal. Since I am the profiles editor, I work on a lot of profiles, which are in depth articles about people. Profiles is a very special section to me because I get to write about what people love most. I get to talk about their story. No matter what I’m writing, I get the opportunity to share insights about our community, which means so much to me.”
