Thanksgiving Heroes

I’m planning on writing about the presence of climate change deniers and how that ideology has been developed. I grew up in an area where it was difficult to witness the amount of people who depend on the land for their livelihoods but refuse to acknowledge that policy change and effort is required to protect their way of life. To accomplish this, I plan to meet with Dr. Bardon, who teaches a class on the psychology of denial, and interview various members of the Wake Forest community to explore their personal relationship to the severity of climate change. The reason I want to study politics and journalism is that I am very interested in what motivates people to vote the way they do, and I believe exploring this topic will provide both personal and collective insight with regards to that question.

I would like to write a story about how students on our campus feel about the national rhetoric surrounding abortion. Abortion is an issue which most students, independent of their political engagement, have a relatively passionate opinion on, many of whom have a personal connection to the issue. The issue is very timely as a Louisiana case will appear before the Supreme Court in 2020, with the legitimate possibility of the conservative majority overturning Rowe v. Wade. This timing coincides with the presidential election next year, one which will likely be held between candidates with opposing abortion agendas. I believe that the issue is very applicable to college students as they have the power to cast votes and orchestrate grassroots efforts to campaign for their respective views. I will plan on interviewing both pro-life and pro-choice thinkers, members of both college republicans and college democrats, as well as members of feminist activist groups on our campus.

I plan on covering a talk hosted by the Student Union on Wednesday called “Becoming Bros: The History of Fraternity Masculinity.” It is part of their semesterly series known as the “Last Lecture Series” in which the Student Union invites a faculty member to give a talk on a topic of their choice. I’m interested in covering this event because it addresses an issue I struggled with for a while when deciding on whether or not I wanted to join a fraternity. I eventually decided to  and am amazed by the notion that fraternities are sort of cults of masculinity. Additionally, I believe it is an important issue to cover as our campus’ social scene is heavily dominated by Greek life and its presence at our school has come into question in recent months with a multitude of suspensions and general apprehension about the process. I am curious as to whether the event will draw a large student presence or whether many faculty/administrative people will be there and whether the talk will result in any sort of response from the school.

I am choosing to follow Nicholas Fandos this semester. He currently works for the Washington bureau and is covering the actions of Congress and the Trump presidency. He graduated from Harvard in 2015 with a B.A. in History and Literature, and served as the managing editor of the university’s newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. He began working as an intern for the New York Times in 2015, before being promoting to his present position as a beat reporter.

I am particularly interested in following Fandos because of how closely he follows Congress. If I were to enter the field of journalism, I would hope to be a beat reporter following Washington, D.C., like Fandos. From the articles I’ve read of his, I believe his coverage follows the facts objectively and presents them in a manner in which the reader is able to form their own beliefs accordingly. Additionally, I am just impressed with how advanced his is in the field for being relatively young. Finally, I believe he has one of the most important in our nation as a responsible presenter of the actions of our government.

Here are two of his recent articles: