In my few short years as a journalist, I’ve seen the best and worst of human nature.
I’ve covered a presidential primary that brought former President Bill Clinton to ASU, a lifeguard rescue at Doheny State Beach, a bus crash in the Utah desert that claimed the lives of nine and countless other on- and off-campus events that have shaped my time at this University.
The scene is always different, as my college years have taken me from ASU’s main campus in Tempe to the brand-new journalism building on the Downtown campus in Phoenix; from the beachside community of San Clemente, Calif. to the halls of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C.
But no matter the backdrop, one thing never changes — I am always blown away by the people I meet.
As a reporter, I’ve learned that everybody has a story. No matter how mundane or ordinary they appear, everyone you encounter in a given day is passionate about something, or different for some reason.
Some great stories are more obvious, like that of Specialist James J. Holmes, an ASU alumnus who was killed in action after a roadside bomb struck his unit’s armored Humvee in Iraq.
A former U.S. Marine, Holmes joined the National Guard and went back to Iraq early because they needed more soldiers. The unmarried 28-year-old Peoria man called serving this country his “calling in life” and said he would rather risk his own life than put someone with a family in danger.
Before he left, Holmes and his mother Rhonda argued because she did not want him to deploy early. When she arrived at the German hospital where Holmes was taken, he only had time to say, “I’m sorry, Mom” before he lost consciousness. He died on Mother’s Day, 2004.
Other great stories are harder to find, like those of the 207 ASU students who lost tuition benefits in 2007 after a resolution requiring citizenship to be eligible for in-state tuition passed overwhelmingly in the statewide midterm elections.
Some stories are easy to find but hard to interpret, like the alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old female student at an on-campus fraternity house in 2008. Her filing of a civil lawsuit this year brought to light the issues of date and acquaintance rape at ASU, which officials agree is a vastly underreported crime on campus but have no idea why.
Stories like these are a good reminder to me of the power of journalism, but also the immense harm a story can cause when it’s done poorly.
I’m not much of a fan of horror movies, but I’ll never forget a line from “The Ring” in which one character asked a journalist, “What is it with reporters? You take one person’s tragedy and force the world to experience it ... spread it like sickness.”
One of the best critiques I’ve heard of modern journalism is its fixation on the aberrant, the abnormal, the grotesque. The sloppiness of “ambulance chaser” reporting and the ugliness of “if it bleeds, it leads” as a TV news mantra contribute to the stereotype of journalists as cynics who destroy people’s lives without concern and will do anything for the “dirt” on the public figures they nurse vendettas against.
But my experience has shown me the opposite. The job of a reporter is to take the unknown, unnoticed and unwritten stories, as well as the “important” ones, and explain why they matter.
Telling these stories is nothing short of an honor. Journalists, authors, screenwriters, bloggers, documentary makers — they all contribute to the narrative that will one day be our history.
My time at The State Press has been the best training ground I could ask for: It has prepared me for a year-long reporting fellowship at the Dallas Morning News, where I will continue to write the stories of the people I encounter while also crafting my own.
Leigh Munsil
Editor in Chief, 2009-2010
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