Journalism

When I started at CBS, the most serious subject I wanted to tackle was food. (And since I’m in Chicago, home of Italian beef and deep dish pizza, that subject is actually quite serious.) Two years into the job and I found my focus shifting to unexpected terrain: news and politics. The world of journalism was long past its prime when I started my journey in 2011 and by 2013 things had gotten worse. It pained by to see the ways newsroom budgets affected topics like state politics and violent crime.

Long story short: I took a dive into a very deep hole filled with violent crime statistics in 2013 and I’ve yet to come up for air.

I did my best to disseminate the nitty-gritty for stories that were increasingly ignored. Homicide statistics are just numbers, so I attempted to divine the stories of the people behind those numbers. Chicago, often at odds with the rest of rest, shared similar woes as small Illinois towns when the state went a year-and-a-half without a budget that decimated social services–was everyone aware they were hurting the same? And could I communicate that through the words of those affected?

My pieces ranged from opinions peppered with jokes and pop culture references, and bias-free pieces that built a narrative out of numbers and testimonies that mirrored the truth.

All my CBS pieces can be found here.

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