For my first story, I am going to cover a public lecture titled, “Economic Freedom: What It Is and Why It Matters”, that is sponsored by the Economics Department on campus. The lecture features Dean Stansel, who is the creator of the first ever local index of economic freedom, which details that certain areas who have higher economic freedom tend to have better outcomes on a wide variety of measures. I want to cover his speech because I am extremely fascinated by the concept. Also, as an economics major, I feel that attending and covering the talk would broaden my knowledge of research on my field of study. I believe the speech is newsworthy because it is a new development in the field of economics. Additionally, writing a news article would allow students on campus to gain an understanding of the index, which might assist seniors as to where they will move after graduation.