Lessons from an Early-Career Journalist

When I took over the Kicker host chair, one of the things I was most excited to do was to interview early-career journalists, who see the changes to our industry from an entirely different perspective from those of us who’ve been around since the days when Twitter was king, or before social media existed. I’ve always loved working with young people—among my many freelance gigs, I help run a program for high school journalists—because I feel like I get smarter (and hopefully even marginally more relevant?) every time I talk to them.

For going on seven years now, Sofia Barnett has been one of my favorite young journalists to talk to. From the first time I met her, when she was a high school junior outside Dallas, she’s been uncommonly driven: toward a career in journalism, toward telling the stories of Indigenous Americans like herself, toward seeing the world and writing about all of it. Now, at twenty-three, she’s covered more big stories than many people do in a full career. She wound up at the Minnesota Star Tribune fresh out of college, moving to Minneapolis just in time for perhaps the newsiest year in the city’s history. As an intern, she was the first reporter on the scene of the Annunciation Catholic Church school shooting last August. Then, while formally assigned to cover the suburbs, she was named to the five-person team covering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on the city.

In this episode, Barnett and I talk about all of that, plus about how she thinks about a career in this tumultuous time for journalism. Listen below—or wherever you get your podcasts.

Show notes:

• He couldn’t run. So they covered him instead. Sofia Barnett, Minnesota Star Tribune
• ‘Just another Native’: Minneapolis Indigenous women demand emergency response to violence. Sofia Barnett, Minnesota Star Tribune
• Texas ranks almost dead last in the nation for women’s health care, research shows. Sofia Barnett, Dallas Morning News
• The Princeton Summer Journalism Program

Megan Greenwell, host

Amanda Darrach, producer