10 questions with Herald-News intern Rachel Barks
Herald-News intern Rachel Barks never considered studying journalism until she was part of a video newscast team at Reed-Custer High School in Braidwood.
But Barks has always enjoyed stories and writing. Keep reading to see how she's grown in those skills this summer, where she intends to apply them and her thoughts on the future of journalism.
Baran-Unland: At what point in your life did you realize you liked writing?
Barks: When I was a little girl, I was always writing random things. I had what felt like a million notebooks full of little stories and I found so amusing and relaxing. I loved writing especially after I fell in love with reading which happened around fourth grade and ever since I've always had a connection to both. It's always been easier for me to adequately express myself through writing which is why it's so important to me.
Baran-Unland: When, and why, did you decide to channel that passion into journalism? Barks: Throughout high-school I didn't even think of doing something within the world of communications, primarily journalism until my senior year. I joined a class called Multimedia
Journalism and in that class we would create a video newscast based on what was happening weekly at Reed-Custer High School.
Alongside that, our teacher would give us small lessons on different aspects of journalism and that's when I realized how amazing I think it is. In that class my main job was to create scripts, shoot video and edit the segment I worked on.
I really enjoyed that but when I started my journalism classes at Olivet, I took an Intro to Journalism class and that's where I fell in love with journalistic writing and realized that where my passion really shone and what I enjoyed the most.
Baran-Unland: Where do you attend school? What made you choose this school?
Barks: I attend Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois. I chose to attend this school because of the community within it. Coming from a faith background, I like the way religion is tied into every day life at the college. I can grow more rooted within my faith but also learn and hone my craft of writing every single day.
Being honest and ethical is so important to the communications program there and I have a passion for that so it's a great fit for me. It's a smaller school so it's also easy to get to know the professors personally which I also really love.
Baran-Unland: Describe your college journalism experiences.
Barks: In college I took my first journalism class my freshman year which was called Intro to Journalism. I loved it. We would do different article assignments, learn AP Style and the beginnings of the ins and outs of journalism.
My professor for that came up to me one morning after class toward the end of the year and complimented my writing and asked if I could be a TA (teaching assistant) for the same class the next semester. Very interested, I took the opportunity and was able to grade and sit in on the class as a TA.
My freshman year of college I also joined the student-run newspaper called The GlimmerGlass.
There I began writing news, transitioned into the sports editor my sophomore year and eventually took over as the features editor as well when the previous one became ill that same semester.
As an editor and writer for the newspaper there I have learned so many things and it's helped me a lot with attention to detail, keeping on top of deadlines, and always working to do my best writing possible.
This upcoming fall semester I will be the news editor for the student newspaper and a staff writer for the Aurora Yearbook.
I love journalism and my school; there I am really able to polish my skills and work on truthful and ethical storytelling which I have a huge passion and love for. I love learning about people's stories and sharing them, I think it's wonderful.
Baran-Unland: What are your career goals?
Barks: My career goals right now include trying to find a newspaper I could work on staff at, writing and reporting. Somewhere like The Herald-News would be a place I would really enjoy working so as of right now my career goals include searching for a newspaper company like that where I could apply and try to get a reporting job.
Baran-Unland: What strategy do you have in place for meeting them?
Barks: To reach my goals I plan to do another internship on top of this one, probably next summer. Getting hands on experience is really helpful alongside the actual classes I take.
So although I only need one internship to graduate I'm going to try to get two under my belt before I graduate to get as much experience as I can before I leave school.
To work on my writing even more, I also joined the yearbook and was hired as a staff writer for that as well. With that I'll be able to get more practice writing before I graduate and I hope to find more writing opportunities at school to give myself as much preparation as I can.
Baran-Unland: How have you grown as a journalist this summer?
Barks: This summer personally I believe I've grown a lot as a journalist. With this internship, getting hands on experience and seeing how a newspaper is actually run and what reporting and writing articles is like in the "real world" and not just in a college bubble helped me immensely.
I was able to make mistakes and learn from them and improve. Since I was able to do that in a hands-on way, there are things I have learned here that I will always remember. I actually have a list in my reporter notebook of "Notes to Self" things I've learned along the way so that I can keep them for reference.
Writing for a college newspaper is very different from a real newspaper so I was able to figure that out and learn from it and tweak things in my writing to make it better. I also was able to learn how to place articles/pictures and templates for those on the newspaper pages through the editing software for the print editions.
This is very helpful because at school I wouldn't have learned that since the paper is online 98% of the time. I improved by asking the important questions and picking out what is most interesting and important to create that connection and interest from readers.
Baran-Unland: Where would you like to improve?
Barks: I believe there will always be ways I can improve and that's what I like; there's always things I'll be learning throughout life and my future careers and ways I can apply that to make myself better.
As of right now I would like to improve making my writing more concise so there are less and less things an editor has to take the time to go through and edit.
I also would like to improve the ideas I come up with; finding ideas and things within the community to write about is the backbone of the newspaper so continuously getting better at finding interesting and timely things happening in the community that people would be interested in and like to read about is something I will continue working on.
I am a shy and quiet person naturally so although, when interviewing, people I am able to come out of my shell more because I love it, I would still love to improve on being as personable as I can as I am learning their stories.
Lastly, asking the most important questions for the stories.
Baran-Unland: Why do you feel journalism is still a viable career path?
Barks: Journalism is a viable career path in my opinion because communities will always be interested in what is going on around them. The world will always be interested in what is happening. It's human nature to enjoy storytelling so I think it will always be relevant.
I believe journalism will always be changing and adjusting as time and generations change but I do think there will always be room for it and places where communities can learn the happenings of the world.
Baran-Unland: How do you envision the journalism of the future?
Barks: I definitely believe journalism will always be evolving but I don't think it'll ever go extinct.
I think print editions of newspapers will be around for years to come, but I can see the digital storytelling becoming more and more important since social media has become such a big part of everyday life in the world right now.
Finding news online is increasingly more of a way people find their news so I could see it evolving into more of a digital world of sharing news. I can see that digital/online news becoming more popular, used and how journalists will be sending out the news to the world.
Pictured with Barks is her dog Pepe.