This article was published in my local newspaper, The West Fargo Pioneer. The Pioneer used to feature a story from one of the West Fargo High Schools every week. This gave us the opporunity to reach out to a broader audience than we otherwise would have had access to, and let us write about more broad topics than just the ones pertaining to our school.
I began the article on the National School Walkout with an engaging lead-in on the national issue that began the chain of events leading to the story. I did this because I wanted to relate the Parkland students with high schoolers across the nation. I wanted to show the reader the same unity that the students at my school felt with those from Parkland. This story also allowed me to reach out to a diverse array of sources.
This article, similar to the one previous, gave me diverse source options. Not only did I talk to my school principal, but I was also able to interview the principal at our middle school about their similar use of technology.
Living in North Dakota, I've gotten used to my state almost never making significant national news; that was until the protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline started. The DAPL was definitely one of the biggest news stories of that year, and I knew I wanted to cover it somehow. I found out that our band teacher, Mr. James Landman, was stationed there with the National Guard to control the protesters. This gave me a unique perspective for the national issue.