If it had ever made it off the printer, this piece would've earned a priority spot in the writing section of this portfolio. When I reflect on my body of work, it's one of the stories I'm proudest of -- an enterprising piece that required a sensitive yet in-depth investigation into how students and teachers were having important discussions about the events of Oct. 7, 2023, written it at a time when it seemed impossible to speak on the issue at all without angering someone around you. 

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I went into the reporting process for this story knowing it wouldn't be what it needed to be if my Jewish and Muslim sources thought it was going to be published. I decided early-on some their names would never be read by anyone but my advisor and I (the version attached here is redacted) because, in my relatively conservative town, it might put them in danger to publicize their faiths/ethnicities or to publicly discuss such a contentious issue. 

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I think a lot about journalists' roles -- how they often operate as platformers of people's most intimate struggles. It's important work that helps readers understand the many kinds of people around them. It's the work I want to spend my life carefully carrying out. But it has the potential to put sources in danger of targeting, hate or violence. If someone made a rude or ethnically hateful comment to one of my sources because of what they were brave enough to say in this piece, I wouldn't forgive myself. And if I made them feel like they had to sterilize or minimize their on-record words by telling them this story would be published, I wouldn't have any story at all. There's a lot to this piece besides the thoughts of students ethnically and/or religiously related to the conflict, but they provide the basis. This article focuses on how students were holding discussions about the war, and to write a story only about how White, Christian students were talking about a war in the Middle East would be unacceptable.

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One of the perks of being a high school journalist is that I create things, such as this story, as an exercise -- a study in becoming a better reporter without any of the pressure of making sources go on the public record. And yet, to call this article an exercise diminishes it. For my sources, being able to speak on this to someone they knew wouldn't tell anyone what they said was relieving. I know that's not how it works in the real world, but this story provided an outlet for them and helped me improve leaps and bounds as a writer. It guided me to a realization that if I have the opportunity to ethically pursue a great story, even if breaks tradition or doesn't end up published, I should do it. Perhaps most importantly, it got me thinking about so many of the moral dilemmas that journalism, especially the most probing journalism, can introduce.

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I should note that EHS Publications never uses anonymous sources, per our policy.