What inspired you to apply to Columbia Journalism School?
I went to Texas State University for undergrad, and one of my colleagues there, Sawyer Click, had enrolled in Columbia's
M.S. in Data Journalism Program. He wanted to go to Columbia to build on the foundation that he already started in student media and to also have more opportunities outside of Texas. Columbia became a real consideration for me after seeing how happy he was during that process. And so I really started to consider grad school. I was in a similar spot where I had a strong foundation in student media - and my experience in journalism was extremely valuable to me.
Columbia is also in New York City, the place that I had always wanted to live. I used to talk about moving to Manhattan one day, and I was adamant about living there even if I had to scrape change to do it. And, my cousin, Darius Johnson, who is now a TV news reporter in Colorado, had graduated from Columbia Journalism School. He was on the phone, telling me, "You need to go to Columbia, I promise you it's great. You're going to do all these things, you're going to learn a lot."
When the admission offer from Columbia came around, I saw it as a great opportunity to build on the foundation in journalism that I had already set and to build more connections in a place that was outside of Texas. I was also excited about each of the classes I would be taking. And, you know, just from speaking with Darius and other alums, I could tell that the people you meet at Columbia are also a big part of the experience.
How did you know that the M.S. Program's Stabile Investigative Specialization was the right fit for you?
I was always interested in social justice-related reporting. And I think a lot of it has to do with my upbringing and my background being a Black man and experiencing the various things that we've seen in the news over the years. I always say the people who grew up in the couple generations before me used to always talk about the O.J. Simpson trial. For me, the George Zimmerman trial after Trayvon Martin's killing was this thing that I watched every day throughout the summer when I was younger. And so I think those were all little pieces that played into my interest in journalism, on top of just loving talking with people and connecting with various communities.
I always knew that if I did reporting, I wanted it to be from the standpoint of accountability. And I wanted it to be from a standpoint of helping communities that are underserved. And so that's why the Stabile Investigative Program was a natural fit. And another big part of it is that I already had this journalism foundation, but I felt like I needed to learn how to add a bit more rigor to the process - and I also needed to learn to be more patient. Journalism is so fast paced, but investigations can be slower paced. You need the kind of patience to go through data and sometimes talk to forty people. Those were the kinds of things I wanted to pick up on. And so Stabile was a natural fit.
What was it like starting the Columbia program by going out to report in New York City?
I would say the reporting class was like a trampoline into everything we would be doing at the J-School. Every reporting class section is different. You have some students who are out doing reporting every single day. In my particular class, we did one long-term feature story. We needed to develop the patience to build the reporting over time to get to the end result. I reported specifically on the intersection of HIV and hip hop. It was around the time that the rapper DaBaby had made those outlandish comments about AIDS at Rolling Loud. And, the end of 2021 was the 40th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic, and so it all made sense. The story had more of a national scope, as I talked to people from all across the country. At first, I had wanted to do something super New York-based. So I was going around, talking with folks in the Bronx, where the onset of hip hop took place. I went out there to take photos and got to know the environment. You learn a lot from the experience of connecting with - and being on the ground in - these places that you had read about and that you had only heard about and that you had only seen on TV and movies growing up.
How did you choose your two M.S. spring 15-week Seminar & Production classes?
Choosing really wasn't a struggle for me. Wanting to report from an accountability standpoint, I knew I had to take Dean
Jelani Cobb's "Covering Race" just for my own passions. A lot of folks I know who had taken his class before were like, "You should take Jelani. You're gonna learn a lot." So "Covering Race" was a natural fit just based on my interest in social justice and seeing how divided this country is along the lines of race.
And then I chose the investigative "Shoeleather" audio reporting class with Professor
Joanne Faryon. I wanted to come to Columbia to continue to build my audio skills. My "Shoeleather" class was focused on telling stories about the day before 9/11. Talk about getting immersed into New York City! It was a great way for me to do the accountability and investigative work that I had come to Columbia for, but do it in an audio format. It was really cool to really dive in and learn how to do longform audio storytelling. I learned the level of work and production that goes into doing a 40-minute investigative podcast episode.
What are the most important skills you gained at Columbia?
I think the biggest thing was to learn a new level of rigor and accountability. I believe I definitely am a better thinker. And I'm a better reporter all around because I think anytime you spend a year doing something - whether it's actually in the field or going to journalism school - you're going to learn something that you can really cling to. Being able to apply a new kind of rigor to my journalistic processes was invaluable. I really think it's helped me now. When I work on stories now, I'm always thinking from a standpoint of, "Okay, who's the most affected by this? Who are we not talking about? Who are we not thinking about?"
And Jelani Cobb's "Covering Race" class showed me the level of the work it takes to put in into being a good journalist - not just the work of doing the reporting, but also expanding your world view of knowing the history of things, and having that kind of knowledge before you even approach the reporting. Without that knowledge you risk making broad generalizations. Since I graduated, I've been sitting up and reading for hours - which is something you don't have a lot of time to do during the program. I think Columbia really gave me that sense of rigor, that sense of accountability, that worldview that there's always more to learn.
How did you approach career development at Columbia?
I started applying to various fellowships and internships last fall. I approached it from a standpoint that the job doesn't have to be the end all, be all for me. I know if I do the right things, it'll be there when it's supposed to be there. And so I was really okay with taking fellowships and internships. And then it just so happened that the Career Expo took place in the spring, and then other opportunities started popping up, and I accepted a job that I will begin after my summer fellowship.
What is the Columbia Journalism School student community like?
That's the best part, honestly: the relationships and the camaraderie you build with the students in the Journalism School. Your classmates are people who, during your toughest times, are also all going through the exact same thing. Our class included people from all over the world. It was really cool to just meet people who are from California, from China, from all over the place. If you look at it right, these are the people who are going to be all across the industry over the coming years doing a lot of great things. The foundation that you build here and the relationships you build here will give us a huge support network for one another moving forward.
I can't tell you how many times I went to dinners or lunches with people after class. The whole class is like, "Hey, let's just go out to get drinks," or, "Hey, let's go get some food," or, "Let's go do this." The experiences that I'll probably remember the most are just building that kind of camaraderie with folks. You might think that coming here, "It's Columbia, it's Ivy League, it's going to be competitive." That couldn't be further from the truth. Everybody is here to support one another. And we all have our individual goals, but everybody was super open to giving advice and accepting feedback. It was like we all were working as one to get to the end goal, which was graduation and then to continue our careers. Some of my best friends now are the people whom I met when we all were in front of Pulitzer Hall at orientation.
One last thing I will say is that on the first day of school back in August we were all out in front of Pulitzer Hall. At first, nobody knew anybody, and then, by the end of the day, you have friends already. That was one of the coolest things ever. Naturally, people were just walking up to one another, "Hey, I'm so and so from so and so." And then next thing you know you had lunch with that person later that day. It was a really cool experience.
What advice do you have for new Columbia Journalism School students?
With the Journalism School, one of the things that I think has been really beneficial to me this entire year is learning time management. I learned to manage my time and say, "Okay, Monday through Friday I'm working really hard, I'm locked into what I'm doing." And then it's okay to take the Saturday and say, "I'm going to go out and enjoy the city. I'm going to enjoy my colleagues and have a good time." It's okay to do those things. I hope future students at Columbia understand that you don't have to run yourself in the ground in order to be great at what we do.
The last thing I would say is just be open to learning. Just be open to learning anything. There is no one way to do journalism. There may be certain things in certain classes that one professor says, and it may differ for another professor, and that's okay. You take the basics. That's the best advice I ever got: take the basics of whatever it is a professor can teach you. A lot of them can teach you about the basics of reporting, and writing, and all those things. And then it's okay to take little things from each professor, and there might be occasions where you might not agree with them, or maybe you take a different approach. That's the beauty of it all: there is no one way to do what we do. And so I think Columbia is a great place because you have faculty who are actively working, doing different things in the industry, and they all have taken different approaches. And so there is no one-size-fits-all glove to doing journalism or to doing this program. You take all the different things you learn and then you are the ultimate decider of how you want to apply them to your career and your journey.