I remember at some point in my childhood participating in a field trip to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I was awed by the massive printer, churning out newsprint and paper. I also remember growing up and reaching for a copy of the Star-Telegram every morning over my bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and flipping past what seemed to me very stuffy headlines to grab the Arts and Entertainment section before my stepdad could get a hold of it, so I could read the comic strips, or, when I was older, to find out what bands were playing in Fort Worth or Dallas the coming weekend. In college, I took classes on writing for newspapers and magazines and writing for television and radio, but McMurry University didn’t have a journalism program, and anyway, I was content to study literature and write short stories and poetry.
In the summer of 2017, when I was preparing to teach journalism for the first time, I had to reacquaint myself with the news. Those classes I had taken in college were roughly 10 years prior. I had all my predecessor Missy McCoy’s notes and curriculum to build on, but beyond casually following national news, I had given the entire industry of journalism little thought. I suppose I can say that I appreciated the work journalists did, but my only knowledge about how that work functioned as a piece of our democracy was limited at best.
So, I had my work cut out for me.
