Writing
Here you will find all of my published writing. I love to cover local news along with broader trends. For me, there is a story in every event and bringing out hidden voices is what journalism is all about.
In February of 2023, I watched a Netflix show called "Drive to Survive" about the racing series Formula One. As I became more interested, I quickly noticed a lack of diversity in the sport's drivers: there were no women, and it was largely dominated by Europeans. Because of this, I set out to cover what racing looked like at the grassroots level and what was causing the lack of diversity at the very top of the sport. What I discovered through more than 20 interviews was a thriving, yet largely unknown community of dedicated families and kids passionate about racing, flying around race tracks dreaming of making it to the professional level.
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This story also represented one of my greatest challenges as a journalist. I did not know anything about cars or mechanics going into it, so I constantly felt out of my depth and it was challenging to distill the information I received into something anyone could understand. I also used a DSLR for the first time to take the photos and videos that help audiences see inside what it is actually like to race competitively, and I combined that with a podcast, audio clips, and infographics so that readers can fully visualize the world that I immersed myself in to write this piece.
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The Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas shook the entire world. Then, Israel began intense bombing campaigns on Gaza in retaliation, killing tens of thousands of people, over 40% of whom are children. The bloodshed in Palestine led to massive protests with thousands of people marching in support of a cease-fire all over the world. I covered one such protest with my partner, Rachel, in San Francisco, and interviewed protesters about why they were angry and what they wanted to see happen in Gaza.
This was my first time working within a larger group on a multimedia package. The festival we covered was an annual event that I had known about since I was a kid, so I was intrigued by the story behind the event and what drove the need to have a festival celebrating local music. The story I wrote covers the decline of public school funding and the value we place on music education.
As someone who follows politics, the news of Donald Trump's arrest came as a big shock. This story covers the political implications of such a high-profile arrest and the way the public reacts to political scandals.
As I left school for some much-needed time off during ski week, I saw many of my peers posting on social media about their vacations to destinations all over the country and the world and began to wonder about the environmental impacts of such trips. I wrote this story about tourism's environmental effects and how people can be more sustainable while travelling as well as the broader complexities of being sustainable in a modern world.
For my first solo news story, I was struck by the tragedy of the Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park shootings. As I did more research, I realized that actually seven mass shootings had occurred within the month of January. The proximity of the Half Moon Bay shooting specifically left the local community reeling and I strove to cover how people were responding to such recurrent tragedy and what it meant for the ongoing debate on gun violence.
The idea for my first feature story came from the discovery through social media of multiple unionizing efforts from workers of multiple different companies. My partner and I collected interview after interview from aggrieved laborers on their struggles for fair pay and to have their voices heard by their employer. It evolved into a story of push and pull between companies and their employees and learning to value your work and find your voice.
When I discovered that City College of San Francisco had become the first community college to offer Cantonese certificates, I was immediately curious as someone whose father speaks Cantonese, but never learned myself. This story covers the struggle to preserve culture and a rich immigrant history amidst pressures to assimilate and taking pride in one's heritage and language.
The second news article I wrote focused on one of the many propositions on the 2022 California General Election. Proposition 29 would have legislated increased regulations for the dialysis clinics run by major companies, especially DaVita. I went into the article with a set angle and initially thought that there were more arguments for passing the proposition than failing it, but I quickly realized that the issue was much more interesting and complicated than I had labeled it as. This article presented special challenges as the topic was so niche that it was difficult to explain the information my partner and I gathered in a simple and easy-to-digest way, but it ended up becoming a deep-dive on a divisive and often overlooked issue within the medical care system.
For the first news article I ever wrote, my partner and I decided to cover a local fair and its impact on the community. We interviewed an organizer of the event, several vendors, and attendees. This article pushed me out of my comfort zone as I had to pull strangers aside to ask them for comments, but it gave me necessary experience in holding interviews and asking good follow-up questions. Additionally, because this was a live event, I took dozens of photos that allowed me to practice my photojournalism.