As a journalism graduate, I’m prepared to change the world by exposing raw human experiences and the truth through my writing.

My name is Hope McKinney and I’m an alumna of the University of Rhode Island who graduated in the fall of 2020.

To be honest, studying journalism was a last-minute decision for me. I desperately wanted to leave my hometown in Connecticut and move in with my best friend in Providence. So, at 23 years old, I decided on a journalism major, applied as a transfer to the University of Rhode Island and moved into an apartment. Two years later, I can finally reflect on why that was one of the best last-minute decisions I’ve ever made.

Growing up, I always knew I had a knack for writing. I’ve read a copious amount of books since I was small, and I distinctly remember sitting at my dad’s computer, writing an endless amount of fictional stories that no one would ever see besides myself. I could make people cry with a quickly written letter dedicated to them, and I had way too much fun writing in English classes. I think my love for writing could ultimately be pinpointed to a desire to escape, or a desire to understand how the brains of people with different lives work. Maybe that’s why I never considered journalism as a career for most of my life - I loved to write, but I didn’t realize I could apply it to real-life situations. I studied psychology briefly at college in Boston and decided I hated it. I went to community college for a bit to keep my brain active while I felt I was mentally drowning in other parts of my life. So, again, I made the decision to major in journalism at the last minute because I just wanted to start my future somewhere, following any sort of path. Once I began classes, I realized I had probably never made such a fitting decision for myself.

            I don’t know if it’s appropriate to thank professors in an introductory essay, but I don’t feel I can speak about my desire to be a journalist if I don’t thank Professor John Pantalone. He taught in such a way that I was able to see my potential as a journalist and a writer in general, and I could examine the field and my writing critically. The more I saw my pieces of writing marked in a mess of red inked corrections, the more I was fueled to improve.

            In all of my journalism classes, I collected and worked on a set of skills to help me succeed in this field. I learned about the fundamentals of American journalism, media law, journalism ethics and how to critically examine journalistic pieces. I wrote magazine and newspaper articles, literary journalism essays, as well as pieces about public affairs. I was able to utilize other mediums in a couple of my classes, like photography, audio and video. In fact, these classes made me realize how much I love editing video and audio, and I plan to continue working on these skills.

I also made sure to take classes that I felt would align with my journalism career, including Education and Social Justice, Black Women in the United States, American Politics, and the Constitution and the Supreme Court. All of these gave me a thorough amount of insight into how American systems function, and why it is so important that journalists do their jobs fairly and properly.

  In May of this year, I began interning at East Greenwich News, close to the beginning of the COVID pandemic. It was a bizarre time to begin writing for a publication. I covered many of Governor Gina Raimondo’s press conferences, as well as East Greenwich town council and school committee meetings. I was immediately enveloped in what felt like a blind and chaotic group search for a needle in a haystack. Nonetheless, I learned how to pay close attention to the most crucial information during a time when almost everything felt urgent, in order to keep the town of East Greenwich informed and safe. I was able to go into the town and meet those who were relentlessly working to keep their fellow residents safe, and it made me feel grateful for the opportunity to write for them.

At this internship, I also had the opportunity to write intimate stories about incredible work being done by residents from, or living in, East Greenwich, which can be found under my pieces of evidence in the categories below. Based on my experience in the field so far, as well as my experience in this major, I realized how passionate I am about writing about people, and writing for people, more than anything else. Every single person has an interesting story to tell and, especially during such strange times, we need human connection more than ever before. I’m excited to graduate and get the chance to share more stories, in a way that’s ethical and thoughtful.