Politico Editor Peter Canellos Explores The Moral Formation Of An American Hero For Equality

This article was originally published on Religion Unplugged on January 21, 2022.

John Marshall Harlan. Photo via Mathew Brady or Levin Handy — Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress).

(REVIEW) When former President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed John Marshall Harlan to the Supreme Court in 1877, anti-slavery Republicans mistrusted him, calling him “the sycophantic friend and suppliant tool” of White supremacists. Harlan had been born into a slaveholding family in 1833, and he was the lone Southerner on the court. 

To the surprise of his critics, Justice Harlan turned out to be the sole defender of civil rights in a series of Supreme Court cases that sharply limited the scope of the civil rights of Black Americans. Today, we read Harlan’s dissents as authoritative interpretations of the Constitution, and we repudiate the racist logic of many of the decisions of Harlan’s judicial contemporaries. How did Harlan get so much right at a time when his colleagues were getting so much wrong? 

At an online book talk organized by the King’s College in New York, Politico editor Peter Canellos said that his interest in the life of John Marshall Harlan was a “search for the roots of wisdom in the law.” 

“What makes Harlan wise in the estimation of history?” Canellos asked. “What made his colleagues unwise?” 

Peter Canellos

Canellos has a law degree from Columbia University, and he covered the nominations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court for The Boston Globe. His legal and journalistic training have equipped him to write “The Great Dissenter,” an engaging, popular and accessible book on Harlan and his jurisprudence. 

Canellos said that Harlan’s distinctive value system lay behind the differences between Harlan and his colleagues on the court. Harlan was a deeply religious man who served as an elder in the Presbyterian church, and he brought to his work a conviction that he was tasked with doing God’s will on Earth. He was not afraid to stand as a lone dissenter in cases to which he perceived his colleagues to be morally blind. In a letter to Harlan, Frederick Douglass wrote, “One man with God is a majority.”

A second source of Harlan’s moral courage was his commitment to the ideals of the Founding Fathers. American democracy was a great experiment in a world full of monarchs and authoritarians. He felt the wisdom of the Founding Fathers akin to a secular religion. He believed that a court that lived up to the spirit of America’s founding documents would ensure that all people who lived under the American flag were treated equally before the law. 

A third source of Harlan’s morality was his personal experience. He grew up in a family steeped in reverence for the law. He was the son of a prominent Kentucky lawyer and politician, and his father groomed him early in life to follow in his footsteps. John had a probable Black half-brother, Robert Harlan, whom his father brought up as a member of the family. In the face of Promethean odds, Robert thrived as a businessman, entrepreneur, politician and philanthropist. John’s relationship with Robert inoculated John from internalizing prevailing cultural concepts of Black inferiority. 

The Great Dissenter

Peter Canelloss, “The Great Dissenter,” Simon and Schuster, 2021.

In the civil rights cases of 1883, Harlan broke with his colleagues when the court ruled that the 14th Amendment applied only to the actions of state governments. In his dissenting opinion, Harlan argued that business owners who perform public functions should be subject to Congress’ power to enforce the 14th Amendment.

Harlan wrote his dissenting opinion using the inkwell with which former Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) — a case that Harlan considered to be America’s original judicial sin. It appalled Harlan that the same court that upheld Congress’ power to force private individuals to turn over runaway slaves in Dred Scot would now deny Congress’ power to prevent racial discrimination against freed men and women in places of public accommodation.  

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), eight Supreme Court justices set up the legal structure for Jim Crow by upholding a Louisiana law that mandated separate railroad cars for Black customers. In his dissent, Harlan wrote, “In the eyes of the law, there is no superior, dominant ruling class of citizens in this country. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color blind and does not know or tolerate classes among its citizens.”  

Peter Canelloss, “The Great Dissenter,” Simon and Schuster, 2021.

In 1906, Harlan intervened in the case of Ed Johnson, a Black man from Kentucky who was convicted of raping a White woman at night in a cemetery even though the victim testified that she wasn’t sure her assailant was Black. Harlan ordered a stay of Johnson’s execution.

A White mob responded to Harlan’s ruling by descending on Chattanooga’s jail and dragging Johnson from his cell. The mob murdered Johnson and pinned a note to his dead body, saying, “To Chief Harlan, Here is your Negro.” Harlan convinced his fellow justices to try for contempt local court officials in Chattanooga who failed to protect Johnson. This resulted in the first and only time in history that the Supreme Court functioned as a criminal trial court. 

At the height of the Gilded Age, Harlan continued his dissents. He defended legislative efforts to break up corporate monopolies, institute an income tax and protect children and other exploited workers. Harlan’s colleagues on the court were corporate lawyers whose commitment to economic freedom precluded government intervention to protect labor rights. 

In the 1901 cases on the status of U.S. territories acquired in the Spanish-American War, Harlan sought to extend full legal protections to people of newly acquired territories in Hawaii, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. He warned that the court must not treat people who live under the American flag as “subjects” or “dependent peoples” lest it “engraft on our republican institutions a colonial system … abhorrent to the principles that underlie and pervade our Constitution.” 

In Berea v. Kentucky (1908), Harlan issued one of his most anguished dissents. An abolitionist preacher had founded Berea College in 1855 to educate Black and White men and women side-by-side, in a state of biblical unity. In 1904, the Kentucky legislature passed a bill to prohibit Black and White students from attending the same institution, public or private. Berea College challenged the law, arguing that it violated its property rights and constitutional liberties. 

The Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s prohibition as a reasonable application of the state’s police powers, citing the state’s interest in preventing racial commingling. Harlan’s dissent rang with righteous indignation. “The capacity to impart instruction to others is given by the Almighty for beneficent purposes, and its use may not be forbidden or interfered with by government,” Harlan wrote. “The right to impart instruction ... is beyond question part of one’s liberty as guaranteed … by the Constitution of the United States.”

Robert Harlan

Robert Harlan was probably the most important influence of John’s views on racial equality. Robert was 16 years older than John. In John’s eyes, Robert loomed as a fearless man of action. Robert’s refined cultural interests and entrepreneurial successes shaped John’s perceptions of what Black Americans could achieve in an atmosphere of freedom. 

Because he was African American, Robert was prevented from pursuing a formal education. Instead, he had to navigate from a young age the rough and tumble rituals of frontier life. At various times in his life, Robert succeeded as a horse racing impresario, a gold rush entrepreneur, a financier of Black businesses, a world traveler and an elected member of the Ohio House of Representatives. 

Robert opened a store in San Francisco during the California gold rush, and he returned to Kentucky with a fortune, which he invested in businesses in the free state of Ohio. Robert helped finance the first public school for Black children sanctioned by the Cincinnati school board. He also held the lease on the Duma House, a hotel that was the “beating heart of the Cincinnati Black community, honeycombed with hiding places for runaway slaves.” When John Harlan was nominated to the Supreme Court, Robert helped galvanize Republican support for his appointment. 

With his large house, fashionable clothing and biracial heritage, Robert became a representative of America’s aristocrats of color. When traveling, Robert and his influential Black friends — such as Frederick Douglass, Louisiana Governor P.B.S. Pinchback and Howard Law School founder John Mercer Langston — would stay in one another’s homes and host lavish dinners. Robert raised his children in a world of cosmopolitan sophistication, community service, political activism and appreciation for the arts. As John was resisting the legal threats to Black rights on the high court, Robert was fighting in the Ohio legislature to protect Black Americans’ access to inns, restaurants and public transportation. The New York World stated that Robert’s influence in Black America rivaled that of Douglass. 

During his lifetime, John Harlan was dismissed by many White Americans as an eccentric outlier. However, Black Americans responded enthusiastically to the justice whom they considered to be their sole ally on the Supreme Court. When Harlan died in 1911, Black congregations around the country organized spontaneous memorial services. The massive Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington hosted a multi-faith service in which Harlan’s Plessy dissent was read aloud.

“When the spirit of John Marshall Harlan left its temple of clay last Saturday morning, a great light went out,” proclaimed the Washington Bee. “An entire race, today, is weeping because ... a friend has been taken from us. ... Now that he has gone, we cannot help but tramble, and fear that no one after him may dissent against decisions against our race.”

In the 1950s, the NAACP found in Harlan’s Plessy dissent the legal basis to overturn segregation. Constance Baker Motley, who clerked for Thurgood Marshall, recalled, “Marshall would read aloud passages from Harlan’s amazing dissent. I don’t believe we ever filed a brief in which a portion of that opinion was not quoted.”

When Justice Marshall died in 1993, Judge Motley wrote, “Marshall admired the courage of Harlan more than any justice who has ever sat on the Supreme Court. Even Chief Justice Warren’s forthright and moving decision for the court in (Brown v. Board of Education) did not affect Marshall in the same way. Earl Warren was writing for a unanimous Supreme Court. Harlan was a solitary and lonely figure writing for posterity.”

Robert Carle is a professor at the King’s College in Manhattan. Dr. Carle has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The American Interest, Religion Unplugged, Newsday, Society, Human Rights Review, Academic Questions, and Reason. Some of the material in this essay was published in The Public Discourse on July 13, 2021.

King’s Journalism Professor Launches Acclaimed Book About Cell-Free Zone in West Virginia

Stephen Kurczy has taught media law and ethics at The King’s College since 2018 and recently released an acclaimed non-fiction book, published Aug. 3 by Dey Street Books, titled “The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence.” It has already been named one of USA Today’s five books not to miss and a Washington Post top 10 book for August. 

Kurczy spent years reporting on the town of Green Bank, West Virginia, which is a technological paradox. It’s home to the Green Bank Observatory, where astronomers “search the depths of the universe using the latest technology, while schoolchildren go without WiFi or iPads.” For the observatory’s radio telescopes to hear the faint whispers of deep space, the surrounding area must remain largely free of radio noise, which is why WiFi, smartphones, and even microwaves are banned at the observatory and discouraged in the surrounding area. Cell service is out of the question. Kurczy explores the characters and subcultures in this town. The New York Times calls the book “a reminder of the simple pleasure of reconnecting with real people in real life.” 

Kurczy graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism. He has a degree in philosophy from Calvin College. He has reported from more than a dozen countries for publications ranging from The New York Times to The Christian Science Monitor. He also has functioned without a cellphone for more than a decade. MPJI executive director and JCS program chair Paul Glader asked Stephen some questions about his new book.

Q. How and why did you decide to report about Green Bank? 

I threw away my first and last cellphone in 2009. Since then, my initially trivial decision to live without a phone has escalated into an obstinate refusal to tote around a piece of technological hardware that I believe infringes on personal space, invades privacy, and erodes human capacity to focus and live in the moment. Seemingly every day, an article or piece of research is published about the downside of smartphones and how they keep us obsessively (and unhealthily) connected at all times. Yet I remain one of the few people to take the hardline response of abstaining from usage. 

In America today, 97 percent of people own cellphones and 85 percent own smartphones, according to the Pew Research Center. I’m an outlier. Is there any place where I still fit in? Is there a place where anyone can still eat dinner, watch a movie, or vacation uninterrupted by a cellphone? Those questions led me to do a simple online search for “places in the U.S. without cell service.” The top result was for a town called Green Bank in West Virginia, supposedly the “quietest town in America,” where cell service was outlawed and WiFi, smartphones, and other modern tech were reportedly banned. To me, it sounded like paradise. Within weeks, I was there.

Q. Who were some of the most interesting characters you reported on in this book? 

The book has a diverse cast. We meet one of the world’s foremost radio astronomers, who is also one of the best banjo players in Appalachia. We speak with the woman who oversees the 13,000-square-mile National Radio Quiet Zone and the man who patrols the area like a cop looking for renegade radio signals. We also interact with the other groups that have been attracted to life in a super-quiet place, including back-to-the-landers, neo-Nazis, government spies, a clown physician named Patch Adams, and a group of people who believe they’re made physically ill by cell service and WiFi. 

One of my favorite characters in the book is a drug-dealing ex-convict named De Thompson, who teaches me how to forage for ramps and takes me deep into a cave that is connected to a long-unsolved murder. He is a colorful, complicated figure, which basically sums up the area. Colorful and complicated. 

Q. Who are the “electrosensitives” that you report on in this book? 

I spent hundreds of hours over several years speaking with the area’s so-called electrosensitives, who believe they are pained to the point of debilitation from cell service, WiFi, smartphones, and almost any other kind of modern technology. Hundreds of these “WiFi refugees” have come to Green Bank from around the world looking for relief from their pain. These people are clearly suffering, though it’s unclear exactly from what. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) is unrecognized by the American Medical Association or the World Health Organization. 

I met one woman named Sue who moved to Green Bank from the New York City area—leaving behind her husband and kids—because she felt that living in the Quiet Zone was her only way to survive. Why would she and so many other people uproot their lives for something that wasn’t real? Their conviction brought me to see electrosensitivity as a kind of religion. Just as some people pray to Jesus and others to Muhammad to heal them, Sue essentially prays to the quiet. Who am I to say she’s wrong? And in any case, she’s a great asset to the Green Bank Observatory, as she truly believes in the area’s quiet mission.

Q. And you reported on the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group that was once selling $1 million annually of hate materials around the world? 

As I said, the Quiet Zone is a complicated place! Along with being home to the nation’s first federal radio astronomy observatory, it’s also home to what was once the “most dangerous and best organized neo-Nazi formation in America,” according to the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center. The National Alliance’s founder was William Pierce, author of an infamous novel called The Turner Diaries, considered the Bible of the racist right. That book and the National Alliance have been linked to dozens of acts of racist violence over the past half-century, and it’s in part because of the evil influence that Pierce wielded from the Quiet Zone. 

In essence, the neo-Nazis came to the Quiet Zone for the same reason as the astronomers, hippies, and electrosensitives: to get away from it all in one of the last great swaths of quiet in America. Pierce took refuge on a secluded mountain where he could pursue his agenda in relative peace, without being bothered by minorities, law enforcement, or civil liberties groups. He was able to thrive in the Quiet Zone in part because of the area’s “live and let live” attitude. Such a view on racism is dangerous, as I conclude in the book, as it also allows racism to fester and eventually erupt into violence. We can’t be quiet in the face of such evil. 

Q. What’s the military’s connection to Green Bank? 

Most reports about the Quiet Zone only mention Green Bank and its famous radio astronomy observatory. But in fact, the National Radio Quiet Zone protects both Green Bank and a town called Sugar Grove, where the U.S. military has since the 1960s operated its own collection of radio antennas used for communications and surveillance. The facility is today operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), the intelligence-gathering arm of the Defense Department. Using the antennas in Sugar Grove, the NSA eavesdrops on millions of private telephone calls and emails every hour. It’s a vital part of the military’s global spy operations. And it’s made possible by the Quiet Zone. Just as Green Bank requires quiet for its telescopes to hear deep space, so does Sugar Grove require quiet to listen in on the outside world’s communications.

Q. What role did religion and houses of worship play in people’s lives and in your reporting in Green Bank? 

Green Bank sits inside the most sparsely populated county east of the Mississippi River, with about 8,200 residents spread over an area the size of Rhode Island. You can imagine how challenging it is to connect with people when they’re all so spread out, and when many were wary of speaking with an outsider like me. I had to find an inroads, and that turned out to be the houses of worship. 

The county has about three dozen active churches, which also serve as community meeting places. I felt comfortable attending them, as my father is a minister and I went to a Christian college. This was a way I could show interest in local culture and respect for locals’ beliefs. In turn, people were more willing to speak with me, invite me for dinner, and point me in the right direction as I searched for answers to what this place was all about. 

Q. Will Green Bank ever change its rules against WiFi and cell service? 

Yes, but perhaps not formally. It’s already happening with WiFi. As I found over years of reporting, WiFi has become so pervasive that it’s hard to find many homes without it, which begs the question: Is something illegal if everybody does it? I compare it to speed limits. A sign may say the limit is 65 mph, but if everybody goes 75 mph then nobody will get in trouble. Same with almost everybody having WiFi in Green Bank. 

Cell service exists as close as nine miles from the observatory, at a ski resort that installed a special low-power system of distributed antennas that allows skiers to stay connected. As such technology gets cheaper, it might become affordable for the area’s towns to consider such investments. Another new technology is low-range WiFi, which might not impact the telescopes. The observatory has also considered building a giant wall or berm around itself, which would essentially shield it from the community’s WiFi. 

The world’s growing amount of radio noise may also force Green Bank to abandon its quiet policy. The Quiet Zone is increasingly under threat from overhead communications satellites as companies such as SpaceX and Google launch plans to establish global WiFi through thousands of low-orbiting satellites. At some point, there’ll be no option but to set up a radio telescope on the far side of the moon, a place that is truly radio silent. 

Q. What kind of lessons did you find from Green Bank that most interested you and might interest readers? 

The Quiet Zone has the power to challenge people to reconsider their tech habits. The absence of cell service and the sparsity of public WiFi is enough to shock outsiders into questioning their reliance on their devices. One visitor to Green Bank told me that he felt convicted to stop sleeping with his iPhone. Others said they felt like they were going through tech withdrawal in Green Bank. The area is a reminder of the virtues of a simplified life. 

But I also found that the Quiet Zone is no utopia. While Green Bank initially sounded to me like a modern Walden that held lessons for the good life, I found that people there struggle with many of the same digital issues as the rest of us. They feel tethered to their smartphones, even if it’s just through WiFi. They still feel like they spend too much time in front of digital screens, even if the internet is incredibly slow. There’s no getting away from the tech revolution. 

Q. You haven’t had a cell phone for some time? We always have to email you to reach you about class planning for your courses at King’s. :) Tell us why and what experience you have had being so unconnected from the smartphone era?

When King’s College contacts me, I only get that message when I’m at my laptop. It means that work is essentially sequestered on my computer—employers can’t follow me on a smartphone that I could hypothetically check during a hike, a party, a movie. It helps me keep work separate from my personal life. I think it also helps keep me sane, because I get a break from the online world. 

From reading a lot of research into the negative effects of being constantly connected and tethered to social media, I’m pretty convinced that life is no worse without a smartphone and that it may well be better. Smartphones have been blamed for falling fertility rates, loss of sleep, lazy thinking, depression and suicide, not to mention a recent surge in traffic fatalities because of distracted driving. 

Stephen Kurczy

At the same time, to be honest, I’m personally online a lot even without a smartphone. Like so many people during the pandemic, I’ve been stuck inside, in front of a computer, rarely away from WiFi and my laptop, which has forced me to consider setting new boundaries with tech in my life. This could be as simple an act as closing my laptop at 6 p.m. for the rest of the evening. We all have to create quiet zones within our own lives. 

King's Alumna Talks About Her Path To EuroNews, Columbia University And Forbes

Anastassia Gliadkovskaya came to The King’s College in New York City as a 17-year-old from California with a background in performance classical piano and a burgeoning career in fashion modeling. Very quickly at King’s, she started gravitating to journalism classes, reporting for The Empire State Tribune and pursuing training and internships from The Daily Dot in New York to EuroNews in France to the European Journalism Institute in Prague. She worked for Prof. Paul Glader and Dr. David Tubbs as a faculty assistant. Her tireless work ethic led her to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied investigative reporting, and now is continuing her reporting career. She took a pause from reporting to answer questions from Prof. Glader.

Q: Tell us about your current role at Forbes magazine and what you are doing there?

A: I’m a reporting intern on the wealth team at Forbes, covering billionaires. My primary role is to help put together the World’s Billionaires issue, which comes out this spring. I help value the net worth of the billionaires on our list (possibly close to 2,700 this year!), and I also write about billionaires who are doing something unique or interesting.

Q: You put the time in with internships during your time at King’s. Tell us about that process and how internships helped you develop as a journalist. And how did the MPJI team help facilitate some of those internships?

A: Getting newsroom experience early is fundamental to getting ahead in the industry. Every employer looks for three things — newsroom experience, clips and the ability to find unique stories. Without the foundational internships in undergrad, I would be having a much more difficult time landing prestigious positions. Internships varied, but they ultimately all taught me to always think quickly and commit myself fully to what I was doing, even if I was afraid or uncertain. I’m lucky MPJI strongly encouraged me to apply for every right opportunity that presented itself. I was able to figure out what I like and don’t like early on, and what my strengths and weaknesses are.

Q: After college at King’s, you applied to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, were you were accepted and completed a Master’s in journalism. Prof. Lisi and I were glad to see that as we are fellow Columbia alums. Tell us about some of the key skills and knowledge you gained at Columbia.

A: Some of the most memorable teachings to me have got to be ethics and information warfare reporting. My ethics class challenged me to consider scenarios both hypothetical and real that called for difficult decisions. Would I publish if I got my information this way? Would I approach a source, given x circumstance? Would I have done what that reporter did? In class we debated, considered and justified. We heard every argument for and against. Not every student had the same answer — and that was the point. We had to dig deep into ourselves to understand where we each wanted to draw lines, morally. It was a critical class for establishing my own standards and defining what kind of reporter I want to be. Information warfare reporting was a class I chose to take, but strongly believe every student should be required to. In it, we learned about the dynamics of platforms and ads, how to investigate them and the dangers of amplification. In a time when we are all vulnerable to bad actors and disinformation online, it is more important than ever to study the ecosystems in which they thrive and the myriad ways they find to take advantage.

Q: You studied at the Stabile center at Columbia, which focuses on investigative reporting. What are some key software, apps, skillsets you think are really helpful to young journalist today especially if they want to do investigative reporting?

A: In terms of investigative reporting, the first outlet and resource that comes to mind is Bellingcat. I see it as the holy grail of modern investigative and digital forensics reporting. In addition to incredible longform reporting, like this, Bellingcat offers everything from guides to case studies to newsletters to webinars. Bellingcat reporters rely on OSINT — open source intelligence — to conduct their investigations. What that means is they don’t just rely on people as sources, but also on publicly available data. On that note, I highly recommend Craig Silverman’s Verification Handbook, which you can find for free online. It’s as close to a comprehensive course on information warfare reporting as you can get. In general, knowing how to work with complex datasets is critical to investigative reporting. Taking a course on advanced Excel at Columbia propelled my work to another level — I strongly suggest taking a course on at least Excel, but also on R or SQL if you want to really get into data reporting. I am attending the NICAR conference this year, led by IRE, which is quite affordable since it’s online this year — keep an eye on this annual conference! IRE’s annual conference is great, too, but less focused on the data reporting aspect. IRE membership is a huge plus to have, and IRE also features fantastic resources on its website. Also, sign up for LinkedIn Premium — journalists qualify for a free version. It is my favorite hack for finding and connecting with sources.

Q: You graduated last May (2020) right? Into a tough Coronavirus-affected market. What has been your strategy to keep reporting and moving forward in your career?

A: I graduated last May, online. Columbia’s career fair got short-squeezed because of the pandemic, and it was clear that the job market would not be forgiving in 2020. But thanks to how much reporting I got to do at Columbia and King's, I felt comfortable freelancing if I had to. I was lucky to land a reporting fellowship during the summer through a program Columbia sponsored last-minute for graduates, but after that ended in August I freelanced for the rest of the year. The key to keep moving forward is to not think of reporting as the only thing that will strengthen your skills and qualifications. Reporters have tons of assets — copy editing, fact-checking, content writing, researching, filing records requests. There’s a job market out there for all of those, and we can definitely work those gigs to pay the bills if needed. So many reporters in the field have a side gig — and it typically pays much more than reporting does! I think one of the biggest misconceptions I overcame after graduating was that if I wasn’t reporting, I was failing. That’s just not the case. And as a freelancer, I had time to pursue longer investigations that I really cared about. My biggest advice would be to take every opportunity that presents itself and put yourself out there. Join Study Hall — an incredible network of freelancers that offers everything from a Slack chat to pitch guides to a database of editors’ emails. Be active on Twitter and network. Help promote other reporters’ work. DM editors with your questions and pitches. These things have not only kept me preoccupied during this turbulent time but also have helped me progress.

Q: Was there a pivotal moment for you when you realized you were all in on journalism as a calling or career?

A: My sophomore year, several King’s students including myself had taken a trip with you, Paul, to Washington, D.C., for a journalism conference. There, we got to hear Edward Snowden speak via video call. It was a once in a lifetime experience. I’ll never forget the things he said, how he encouraged us in our fight for the truth and for exposing corruption. I felt so alive and invigorated, I knew this was what I am meant to be doing.

Q: What would you tell high school or college students who want to be journalists regarding the importance of studying in NYC?

A: I realize it’s a privilege to study and live in New York City, and that not everyone can do so. But for me, it was the reason I got into this business, so I owe a lot to the city. Here, you're surrounded by the biggest and most important hallmarks in the world. I remember waiting in line in the dark, waking hours of a chilly fall morning to attend Good Morning America in Times Square. I remember touring the New York Stock Exchange, the Museum of American Finance, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, Vice. Few things can inspire a budding reporter like getting to walk inside some of the most exciting halls of our time. And learning to report in a place like NYC will make you a more dogged and patient reporter. You’ll be running around the city figuring out the subway system, hauling equipment and trying to convince strangers to talk to you, and that’s just your typical Monday morning. But that’s what will make you better as a person and more competitive as a reporter. You’ll prove yourself, and you will be rewarded; having lived here for several years, I have established many connections that I trust will go a long way to support my career. If you can be anywhere, this is the place.

Q: What else would you like to tell friends of MPJI and future students at our various programs?

A: Reach out to other reporters and editors. Ask questions. Apply again for jobs when you get turned down. Always be thinking about ways to tell unique stories and always propose new ideas! Figure out what you like and hone that niche. If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out!

Q: How did your time at TKC help you find your path in journalism?

A: I am so grateful that I ended up at a small school like TKC and that it had such a thriving journalism program. I realize that had I gone to a giant undergrad school, I would have been paid much less attention to by professors and mentors. It would have also been more difficult to get involved on campus, and there would have been more bureaucracy to push through to implement change or to experiment with, say, the campus paper’s content. Naturally, with such a small set of students, TKC is able to closely monitor and mold its students’ progress, when it wants to. I think the journalism program is a brilliant example of that. I never felt forgotten or unimportant thanks to the individualized mentoring and encouragement I received from professors and older students alike. Both the big things, like internship recommendations, and the seemingly smaller things, like resume workshops, were of key importance. You can’t succeed in the industry if you aren’t prepared, and you can’t succeed in college if you don’t have guidance. My consistent excitement about reporting and confidence in my own abilities was nurtured because of both.

MPJI is based at The King’s College in New York City. MPJI provides education, training and professional development projects for journalists at the high school, undergraduate and professional levels. It is named after the late John McCandlish Phillips, a legendary reporter at The New York Times.

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