Asaka's Take: A Lesson About Community

Our recent interview with Carla Robinson & Daralyse Lyons about hyperlocal news coverage brought something important to mind

Mark here … my college student assistant, Asaka, wrote a terrific essay that connects to a recent interview we did. Meanwhile our latest, interview with a pair of Pulitzer Prize winners dropped just in time for you to listen on your July 4 trip. So give this a read and tune in!

Asaka Park is a student at The College of Jersey

A little about me: I always wanted to be a staff writer for Vice or Buzzfeed, where I hoped to use enough big words that the New York Times fairy would take my hand and grant me the Gail Colins pass to use “Nah” as a complete sentence.

I would’ve gone to Sarah Lawrence or Bard if I wasn’t in the business of saving money (just in case, you know, I ever find myself considering running away from home, hiding in my single dorm running on hours of therapy and Doordash meals, and graduating a semester late). What tipped the scale in favor of declaring a Journalism major instead of a Creative Writing one was the likelihood of failing the Fiction portion, since my imagination hasn’t progressed past a third-grade level.

So when my wonderful professors at TCNJ asked me if I joined The Signal — TCNJ’s flagship newspaper — I stuck up my nose.

If you know my background , feel free to skip this part, but I grew up feeling unheard and invisible due to the challenges of my disability. I believed that my written voice was the one freaking thing I had power over, which is a perfect way to burn yourself out. But the last thing I wanted was to be stifled by fussy editorial guidelines, you know? I also never saw my experiences represented within disability activism, so I always came in hot with this attitude of "I'm going to make everything about myself because when has anything been about me?"

But (because there’s always a but!) in the second half of my junior year, I ended up writing a bunch of articles for The Signal, for two “beats” style classes. Not all of them made the cut, but I probably interviewed a little over 20 people in total (and slid into many more DMs).

I love The Journalism Salute episode with Daralyse Lyons and Carla Robinson because it shows the importance of building rapport with other writers, with your sources, and really, the entire community. Mark has quite many episodes where he’s bought in two people to talk about something they’ve worked on together — is it bad that I think these professional partnerships are low-key #friendshipgoals? (It’s not bad).

“I've always followed relationships and opportunities. I very much see myself as a relationship builder. And so when I came to the end of one project, I always wanted another project, and I wanted that project to be deeply grounded in people and serving people.”

— Daralyse Lyons on The Journalism Salute

In ethical journalism, it's important not to interview people with whom you have a close personal relationship or to seek favors. But active listening can foster organic friendships, especially in a college setting. For my Magazine Writing class, I decided to write an article called “Influencers of TCNJ,” where I spoke to students who had large social media followings. I really wanted to know: what was it like to “blow up” on TikTok?

One of my subjects, Erica, was someone that I had class with. If I didn’t know her, I’d worry whether she’d judge me: she would get thousands of likes and modeling requests by posting her face, and even so, my friends had no idea who she was, because we just ran in completely different circles. But when we did a group project, I said her lashes were amazing, she recommended a mascara brand for me, and when I found her on social media to tell her it worked, I realized she was another person who I could feature. When we hopped onto Zoom, she kept thanking me for interviewing her and telling me how happy she was to see me again.

“I'll say all these years of actually doing journalism, what that has taught me and shown me is, ‘Oh my god, the world is full of individuals’. There are so many different kinds of people. People come in all the kinds. And they all, almost all of them, are convinced that they're right about something.”

— Carla Robinson on The Journalism Salute

Eventually we met up and at the Starbucks drive in I broke down in tears because she asked such thoughtful questions about my disability, questions most people are too scared to ask. She’s also studying communications and loves to talk to people. She’ll come home from a 3 hour lecture and do a livestream marathon for nearly as long.

I also met my best friend, Franchesca, through academics. We were random roommates for MUSE (Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience) and the semester after we started meeting up in the ArtsComm building to study together. We’re both passionate about storytelling, though that looks very different for both of us. I write and write and write but she’s more on the visual arts side of things. One actual text she sent me was “Sorry, I’ll be busy from 4-5 PM, I have a meeting with a guy that’s going to cut some trees down with an chainsaw for me.” Not even two hours later, I get a text from her saying “I got my trees cut” with a picture of people bringing trees into the backyard.

The final product with the trees delved deeply into themes of family and heritage, and words can’t do justice to it. I will say it was bittersweet because her grandma passed away before she could see it. When I saw her, I said “Did you ask your professor for an extension? No one in their right mind would be mad about it” but she stayed up all night installing it and it ended up being a poignant tribute to her grandma. I was so happy for her when she told me she won the exhibition!

I used to keep my social life and professional life separate. Obviously, I always shared my finished product on social media and that was my go-to way of making friends, but the process of writing was a very private struggle. After all, if I made sense in first draft I wouldn’t be taking this long. I didn’t think my peers would be able to help me. It was hard to keep up with the fast-paced environment so I was big on faking it till I made it. I put up this “make sure they know I’m not stupid and drop the mic” act, where I’d excitedly barge into conversations to say that I knew what they were talking about and stop smiling when the conversation moved on. On two separate occasions, I picked fights with an editor because I felt like it. I just didn’t see other students as a source of support.

“[On national or international journalism], you can't read about the person who lives across the street from you and then learn something new about them and then go shop in a store that you heard that you read something about and cross-reference a fact that we put in the paper with your next door neighbor … there's just something beautiful about local journalism, and I see it as an empathy builder.”

— Daralyse Lyons on The Journalism Salute

These days I spend most of my time in the journalism lounge, where people in charge of student publications go in and out. My colleagues at The Signal work hard and have fun while doing it — as shown by their bombastic April Fools special, which I have posted on my wall.

One of my friends Bailei runs an indie publication, Deviate, which is something I wish I had when I was a freshman. You can tell she cares about what she does and knows what she’s doing. Currently, I don’t work on any student publications because I want to make sure I can actually follow through with the deadlines before making a commitment like that (ask me how I know), but I hope that I can before I graduate. I might still be competitive and hotheaded at times, but it works out because I occupy such a unique niche that no one else really does. Like huddling backstage with your classmates before the school play, there’s something powerfully grounding about sharing ~the process~ with other people without even saying a word.

Two years ago, the word “networking” would’ve made me throw up. Now I say “comms baddies” unironically. I guess that makes me old, so to all the kids going into journalism: don’t wait until you finish something — whether it’s a project, a class, or the college experience — to reach out. Look at the people, opportunities, and lessons right in front of you. Leave no stone unturned, but if you do, know that you can always circle back (sorry, I’ll go to bed).

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