An episode for your weekend: Florida journalism student and reporter Vivienne Serret

A fearless investigative reporter who is a part of team coverage on national news - the resignation of school president Ben Sasse.

“For us who choose journalism, it can be hard. You feel like an imposter amongst a sea of wealthier white peers or feel like maybe you're letting everyone in your family down because you still chose an unstable career.  You try to work harder than everyone just to prove you are more than a statistic, but the same industry we work for is constantly letting us down.”

That’s an excerpt from a column by our most recent interviewee, Vivienne Serret, a student and journalist at the University of Florida.

I’m trying to do more interviews with students in hopes of getting more students to listen to the podcast. Vivienne was an important one to get.

She is a first-generation Latina whose family is from Cuba. She’s someone who represents the future of the journalism profession and represents it well, both with columns like that one and as part of major news coverage, such as the resignation of university president Ben Sasse, a former U.S. senator.

I hope you’ll listen to my interview with Vivienne and read her work. Here are a few excerpts from our conversation.

(The piece you quoted from) then detailed the lack of Latino representation and leadership positions in the journalism industry. Who are you writing it for when you write a piece like that? 

I was really thinking of every first-generation college student, specifically first generation Hispanics, Latinas or Latinx, because it's hard for a lot of groups of all sorts of backgrounds and levels of being marginalized to feel represented.

And for me, I was really thinking of everyone in my community specifically because representation is a huge thing. And sometimes … I love journalism and I love the University of Florida, but attending a predominantly white institution can be scary.  And it can be scary too when and, and there are so many unfortunate stereotypes about Hispanics and Latinas and the type of work we end up doing, and you often don't see people like us on TV or as award-winning journalists with opportunities I just felt like I needed to write something that other people could understand and relate to. 

Was it somewhat therapeutic for you to write it?

Oh, absolutely. It was therapeutic for me to write it and it was therapeutic for other people to read it. I got good feedback from a lot of my peers within the J school that are also Hispanic and Latina and that told me that I did my job. I did exactly what I sought to do.

What's the best thing that you learned journalistically from working specifically on the Ben Sasse story?

There's one big takeaway that I've had: The understanding and appreciation for the impact that writing something can have on people and on the real world.

I hadn't anticipated the level of engagement. The amount of people that had no idea who Ben Sasse was, had little to no understanding of the University of Florida.  And through my work or through Garrett Shanley's work, they now have a better understanding of a lot of the things that are going on.

And that's something that is so surreal to me. At the end of the day without my readers and audience, I am nothing and I am eternally grateful for that.

Investigative journalism and the Ben Sasse story requires a level of fearlessness. Where did fearlessness come from for you? 

I feel like I've always had it. I think what solidified the fearlessness for, for me was actually during a story I wrote last year. There was a vigil for Israel. I was there for another class because I was a videographer. And there was a loud noise that a bunch of people had perceived to be gunshots or potentially an explosion.

I want to say there were over a thousand people in attendance.  I'm standing in a corner and next thing I know I'm seeing a thousand people run in my direction, screaming. That day I found myself running towards it, that possible danger, rather than running away. I would have never found that out about myself until I had been in that situation and passed a mental barrier.

How do you view the state of the industry and its place for you? 

It's always a difficult question because I like to tell myself and, and the people around me that there is absolutely always a place, a newsroom where we belong. I just think right now with journalism, in terms of our political climate and the advancement of technology, such as the use of AI, that it seems a lot scarier than it really is. It seems a lot more intimidating than it used to be.

I think journalism is just evolving in a different way.  And I know I'll find my place. and all my colleagues will too.  We'll, we're just a new generation that has to kind of get used to these fast-paced changes.

I disagree with any sort of sentiment that it's dying because at the end of the day, one of the first things people do in the morning, when they're out is, let's check Twitter. Let's turn on the news. Let's see what's going on. Let's go to YouTube. Let's go to whatever and stay informed. 

That doesn't just give me hope, but it helps me  understand the fact that I'm exactly where I need to be.  

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