by Christina Polge
Uploaded November 16 at 3pm
Writing for the Durham Voice has been a powerful experience for me. It reminded me about the true value of journalism: the readers. When writing my stories, I spent a lot of time considering what would be important for Durham residents to know and then I centered my pieces around that. For my first story, I chose to write about Senator Woodard’s voting record and the INDY Week’s endorsement because I knew that voters would be interested in hearing both sides of the story. The second story was a more traditional profile of Woodard’s goals and policies, but I also thought this was important because people need to understand what the person they’re voting for stands for. As for my third story, I initially wanted to just get some opinions from people who were familiar with Mike Woodard in political spaces, but since one of those opinions was a very serious one, I knew I needed to address it. This story was most difficult for me to write because I wanted to make sure I was representing all truths accurately and fairly. For my final story, I moved away from covering Woodard individually and wrote about the political forum on the arts. This was important to me because I’m someone who is incredibly passionate about the arts, so I knew that readers would be too. Overall, these four stories helped me learn about writing for a community in a compassionate, active way and I really enjoyed that. As a journalist, I absolutely grew and I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity.
