Notes from the Margin

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Storytelling Decisions

I stumbled into journalism by accident. Literally.

I walked into the wrong classroom on my college campus and realized — about thirty seconds too late — that I’d wandered into the university newspaper’s headquarters.

I say headquarters with a pause. It was a shoebox of a room: one battered conference table, framed issues from decades past, office chairs with faulty wheels, and computers that had clearly lived several lives before mine. It took a solid five minutes before anyone asked if I was lost.

I shrugged.

“No,” I said. “I think I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

It felt cinematic in the way life sometimes does only in hindsight. I registered for English 210 that same day and became the paper’s newest staff writer.

What followed was not subtle. I moved quickly — from staff writer to news editor to editor-in-chief by senior year. By then, I was earning degrees in history, political science, and journalism, serving as president of the history honors society, and existing almost entirely on caffeine and conviction. I had very little time. And somehow, even less patience.

Every week, I pushed out a 16-page paper. I argued with university administrators. I advocated relentlessly for my staff. I listened — really listened — to stories of sexual abuse on college campuses, to hazing that went far beyond the headlines, to whispers people were afraid to put their names behind. I fought presidential offices for access. Not the university’s president. An actual one.

I exposed white supremacist activity in the area. I made a U.S. House candidate cry. I raised hell when a Fox News contributor was appointed director of a newly minted “center for media integrity.” I was fearless. Relentless. Occasionally unbearable.

And exactly where I needed to be.

My days — and my temperament — look different now.

I started working professionally before I finished my degrees, contributing to publications like The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Magazine, and OC Weekly, before moving on to NBC News. Writing turned into producing. Producing turned into digital strategy. Editorial instincts evolved into an understanding of systems, platforms, and scale. Today, I work fully in the tech space, managing AI SEO strategy for one of the largest companies in the world.

On paper, it looks like a departure.

In reality, it’s a continuation.

Because I never lost sight of who I am when my back is against the wall. Journalism teaches you that early — how to hold your ground, how to ask the uncomfortable question, how to decide what matters when everything is urgent and nothing is simple. It teaches you that every story is a series of choices: what to include, what to leave out, where to apply pressure, and when restraint is the braver option.

Journalism is not for the weak. It requires a spine, a devotion to principles older than the country itself, and an acceptance that the work is demanding, the hours are brutal, and the pay is rarely commensurate. But it also teaches you something harder and more valuable than technique.

It teaches you how to commit.

Sometimes — to a story, to a truth, to an idea — you have to dedicate yourself to something bigger than immediate reward. Something brighter than certainty. Something that exists, at least at first, as promise rather than proof.

And you have to decide — quietly, deliberately — that it’s worth the work.

Off the record, that’s the only decision that’s ever mattered.