Imagine being honored for your skills and meeting your heroes at 17. For two Highland journalists, it became a reality.
Editor-In-Chief, Luca DiGregorio, and Culture and Community Editor, Lien Hoa Torres, were two out of only five high school journalists across the state chosen to be recognized at the Salt Lake Tribune’s annual NewsMakers event.
The experience was interesting and helpful when it came to getting a glimpse of the future and what pursuing journalism as a career might look like.
“It was really cool seeing the work that people have done,” DiGregorio said. “It was a really wonderful experience getting to meet all these professional journalists and seeing where my future might take me.”
Being able to converse with professionals gave DiGregorio and Torres new insight into the world of journalism and beyond. They received a lot of advice that will help them grow as journalists and people.
“It was really interesting talking to other women of color about the challenges they’ve faced and experiences they’ve had,” Torres said. “They all gave me advice to pursue whatever story I want to write and to follow my gut and don’t let anybody tell you that there’s not a story there.”
Introduced as the future of journalism, they had the opportunity to make connections with professional journalists including the Editor-In-Chiefs of the Tribune and Chronicle.
DiGregorio and Torres, along with a girl from Judge and two students from Kearns were all introduced at the banquet. The Tribune talked about the roles they each played for the school paper and what they were doing to “make an impact on the future.”
Having the opportunity to talk to many professional journalists with different ideas gave DiGregorio and Torres inspiration and excitement about their own works and about interesting insights made by those who have been in the business for a while.
“I really liked meeting actual journalists in a more social environment. It was really nice to meet them while they were interacting with each other, just overhearing their conversations,” DiGregorio said. “And also talking to professional journalists and getting their advice.”
Having DiGregorio and Torres be one of only five high school students in the state chosen by the Salt Lake Tribune to recognize is a tremendous honor for them, as well as the Rambler staff and the Highland community.
It is exciting to see what these two can accomplish.
