#there’s a marx quote about how arguing with friends is better than staying silent for the sake of peace (the latter is in fact liberalism)

[palin-tropos]

mazov: can you believe we have to respond to these weirdos who think communism will involve communally sharing women. well this article is going to be funny to write at least

nilsen: that’s a ridiculous idea women are disgusting give me that pen

mazov: actually you know what? we don’t need to both work on this silly little article. I… I really need you to draw me some nice revolutionary buildings. give me your best buildings ignus. I need them

[stlwebsitedevelopment]

George Washington University

The house is silent, six people sleeping above and below me, my brother across the hall. Once I finish my homework, now neatly arranged at the corner of my desk, I throw on headphones and, in full blast, turn on the video.

Since the onset of my freshman year, I’ve ended every night by watching recordings from history on YouTube. It started when I found the Kennedy-Nixon debates while scrolling through a list of recommended videos. I’ve since seen every Presidential debate, war recording, and broadcast from 1945 to the present day available within YouTube’s confines.

When I’m out of ideas, I always come back to the old CBS Evening News bulletins headlined by Walter Cronkite.

He is, in every way, the man whom I aspire to be.

In an era of record disconnect between media and public, a clean name means everything. Trust, the basic principle that journalists must adhere to operate effectively, is rapidly fading. In Cronkite’s time, things were different. When he spoke, the public took it in.

One video shows Cronkite’s impact on America better than all others: his report of the John F. Kennedy Assassination on November 23, 1963. Just after the shooting, CBS got Cronkite’s voice on the air. The cameras were barely ready, but CBS executives knew no one else could break the news to Kennedy’s country.

Hours later, a tearful Cronkite confirmed to a shocked nation that Kennedy had died, all the eyes of the country on his studio. He must have known this; but tears flowing, Cronkite let his emotions out, getting through the report while still processing the news himself.

Every day in my young career as a journalist, I strive to embody Cronkite and to push forth the ideals of journalistic integrity he believed in. I’m the editor in chief of two newspapers in St. Louis. I pursue the publishing of real, hard-hitting stories.

My future is in political journalism, informing and empowering the electorate. Our stories on interdistrict busing, Islamophobia, and LGBTQ+ rights have attracted thousands of views and many comments. We start conversations.

As a writer, I am in a unique position where my voice helps others understand the world better. To some writers, that means that you must be objective, never distort the truth with your opinion.

Walter Cronkite reported objectively, never straying far off the middle line. However, he argued — and I do — powerfully in support of the American citizen. Traveling to report for CBS in Vietnam, he shocked the nation by portraying the ills inherent in modern day conflict. His words became the clarion call through which an armed society gradually began to set down its guns.

I will be like Cronkite — the active voice, those piercing eyes, the distinctive mustache, telling it like it is.

————-

I’ve always had a thing for libraries. When I was younger, I craved the constant comfort of the Wildhorse Elementary School book nook. It was proof that at least one place existed for the kind of kid I was growing up to be — one with an unquenchable curiosity.

My friends all know me as the kid who memorizes Jeopardy games. They can count on me to recall obscure facts about the history and watch Premier League Football on Saturday mornings to get more cultured. I help them in quiz bowl matches.

When I was first introduced to George Washington University, I was told it was a place of enlightenment, where politically minded and socially active students like me are expected to come together and thrive. On my tour, I felt it — in Gelman Library, with its modern chairs and dynamic lighting, and atmosphere more conducive to learning than I’ve experienced in any other place; in Jack Morton Auditorium, colored by its history of incredible speakers that I can already quote for days.

I’ll take advantage of these spaces of learning as a student in the honors program.

It’ll start in my freshman year when I take Revolution with Professor Joseph Trullinger. We’ll analyze modernity through the lens of history, learn how society’s many cultural revolutions shaped it. We’ll scrutinize the meaning of the word ‘revolution,’ its benefits and shortcomings, and discuss how gradual political reform works better. I’ll study the Death of God with Professor Mark Ralkowski, putting my love of philosophy to the task while citing the interpretations of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud.

Apart from the course list, being a part of the honors program will put me in a unique position to form an immediate community at GW. It’s a group of 500 students in a school of 27,000. I’ll live in West Hall, surrounded by inquisitive scholars with whom I’ll grow and learn from. I’ll use the contact course system to perform an honors internship, exploring my career path while growing as a writer with the Washington Post.

I’ll research it. Fascinated by communications, I am genuinely interested in how modern media platforms can influence electoral results. I aim to follow in the footsteps of student Bailey Mohr, working with Professor Kimberly Gross of the School of Media and Public Affairs to research how campaigns can improve their relationships with voters by using social media and messaging.

So I’ll end my GW student journey by studying Time with Professor Bethany Kung. I’ll try and make sense of its nature, questioning its objectivity, and burying myself deep into the treatises of the thinkers who commented on its real length.

I’ll find my fit, one of 27,000 self-motivated, determined Colonials. We’ll put our muskets together, united by the knowledge we seek.

—————-

I sat anxiously as my counselor went over a computer program, shifting the mouse to try and decode its patterns, looking over each scenario until she concluded that there was no way for me to fit the newspaper into the fourth-hour block of my crowded class schedule for the upcoming school year.

Our school’s master schedule had failed me — a bodacious newspaper student who’d grown as a writer since joining the year prior. The system threatened my obligation as the newly minted news editor.

So I wouldn’t just let my passion fall by the wayside.

So I made do, meeting with my newspaper adviser to go over the situation in detail, offering a course of action, and breathlessly awaiting a response. I told her that I would skip lunch every day to come to the newspaper and interact with my staff reporters. I’d stay after school two times a week to ensure that my news section had a solid foundation for each scheduled publication. When my adviser nervously consented, weary of my impending future of empty stomachs and bleary eyes, I did not let her down.

For the next year, I followed through. I woke up early to pack my trademark lunch — two pieces of white bread and Provel cheese — and expanded my role in the newsroom despite the fractured time with which I had to bond and work with the staff.

Today, I’m the editor in chief of this paper. We’ve redesigned the newspaper, emphasizing fresh looks and a renewed focus on factual, critical writing. I led the staff on our annual trip to the NSPA conference this year in Dallas, and have spent the year teaching our newest reporters how to lay out pages and pre-plan interview questions.

The lessons I learned while running from the third floor AP Environmental Science room down to the newspaper office, fighting the student traffic to have some time with my staff, taught me about vigilance. Moreover, every story of mine from that year, written entirely outside of class, rests as a show of what can be accomplished with hard work, some compromise and a little bit of provel.

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