The Daily Signal - #439: The Daily Signal’s Young Reporters Share Their Favorite Stories

Episode Date: April 14, 2019

On today’s podcast, we’re talking to two enterprising reporters who spent the past few months contributing to The Daily Signal. We hear from Josh Nelson and Mykala Steadman about their Heritage Foundation internship experience, some of their favorite stories, and where they’re headed in the future.Also on today’s show:• Mykala Steadman has a story about how students are supporting other students during Autism Awareness Month.• We share our favorite letters to the editor. Your letter could be featured on our show; write us at [e-mail] or call 202-608-6205.The Daily Signal podcast is available on the Ricochet Audio Network. You also can listen on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts.If you like what you hear, please leave a review or give us feedback. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is The Daily Signal podcast for Monday, April 15th. I'm Rob Blewey. And I'm Rachel Daljudice. Today we are talking to two enterprising reporters who spent the past few months contributing to The Daily Signal. We will hear from Josh Nelson and Michaela Stedman about their Heritage Foundation internship experience, some of their favorite stories, and where they're headed in the future. We also share your letters, and Michaela has a story about how students are supporting

other students during Autism Awareness Month. Before we begin, we'd like to ask for your help to help us spread the word about the Daily Signal podcast. Please give us a five-star review on iTunes and share this episode with your family and friends. That will help us make sure that we are continuing to grow and reach more listeners. Stay tuned for today's show coming up next. Do you own an Alexa? You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily flash briefing. It's easy to do.

Just open up your Alexa app, go to settings, and select Flash Briefing. briefing. From there, you can search for the Daily Signal podcast and add it to your flash briefing so you can stay up to date with the top news of the day that the liberal media isn't covering. We're joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by two of our interns, Joshua Nelson and Michaela Stedman, who is the communications intern and also host the good news segment on our Monday podcast. Thank you both so much for joining us today. Of course. Of course, thanks. You all have been interning here at the Heritage Foundation, and I want to start off by just asking you all to give us a

sneak peek into what this internship has been like for both of you guys. Well, I guess I'll start. Well, say for me at least, this was pretty in terms of living in D.C. long term, this was my second time. I previously lived here about three years ago. I did an AmeriCorps program and did a lot of work at community service. So, you know, D.C. in that sense, has always been intriguing to me and just the type of people who work here are all pursuing like government jobs or journalism, working on the hill.

And I knew I wanted to come back. I just saw the Heritage Foundation as a perfect opportunity to get immersed in that D.C. culture and build a career for myself. And I was pretty nervous in the beginning because I held Heritage to such a higher regard. I followed a lot of their tweets from the President K. James. I remember on LinkedIn when I saw that she was first appointed as president. I was like, oh, cool. That's something I have a new president now. So I kind of been, the Heritage has always been on my radar.

And, you know, I read a lot of Daily Signal Post, Jared Stepman. Read a lot of his stuff. Kelsey Harkness, who's now Kelsey Boller, read a lot of her pieces as well. So, you know, I felt, you know, a lot of pressure coming in. But I think just the support of the staff and being able to go to those pitch meetings and seeing how they, you know, how the writers are angling their stories has been really helpful. And also having the flexibility to pitch ideas on what I'm passionate about, which is education policy. I tend to try to pitch that as frequently as I can. There's a, it's been a steep learning curve. And I feel like there's always more room to grow and always have a really tough editors, too, I need to mention. You know, but that's a good thing, having a tough editor. I think, like, that's one of those things you don't want a lot of positive reinforcement in because, you know, writing is an ongoing, growing process.

So, yeah, in that sense, I think I've learned a lot. Well, Josh, thank you for your contributions. You've certainly made many right from the first day. I remember we sent you out, I think your first week doing a story on the street. interviewing some people in D.C., so definitely has been great to work with you. And like I say, we appreciate all of the stories you've contributed. Michaela, you haven't been focused exclusively on The Daily Signal, but you've certainly contributed quite a bit to this podcast and written several other pieces. Tell us about your experience. Yeah, so I think contributing to the podcast has actually

been one of my favorite parts of the internship, getting to do the good news story and writing has been so much fun. And I'm really grateful for that opportunity. that you guys have given me. I'd say the whole internship overall getting to move to D.C., I'm from a small town in Alaska. Shout out to Saldotna. And then I go to school in a small town in Idaho. And so moving out here, it's been a whole new world. I live right next door in the E.W. Richardson building. And so living on the hill and seeing all that goes on here and the amazing opportunities and how vital communication is too has been really impressive for me as a communication major and I've loved the experience. So both of you have written stories for the Daily Signal.

What would each of you say has been one of the favorite stories you have authored? Well, I think one of my early in the internship, I had a really big project. It was to interview Representative Katrina Jackson from Louisiana and, you know, essentially to have her share her story on becoming pro-life and she's, the irony there was that she's a Democrat, and that's typically not a, it's not part of the party's platform. So, you know, that was kind of interesting just to get a sense of, you know, her background and her story that led to that and, you know, just talking to her over the phone I thought was a pretty big deal. You know, it felt like a real journalist at that point. I'm like, oh, wow, I'm interviewing a congresswoman. So one of only two

Democrats, I believe, to speak at the March for Life this year. Exactly. And she also spoke at the March for Life as well. So I'd say in terms of interviews, that was my favorite and following up with an article on that was a really great. But I'd say in terms of actual articles written and research, my favorite was covering one of the first studies ever on school vouchers intersection with crime reduction among inner city kids, obviously because of my education policy interests and I always like to find any sort of benefits of school choice measures. And I was able to reach out to the University of Arkansas Ed Policy Director Patrick Wolf.

And he and I were able to talk a lot about that study that he conducted and looking more deeply into the Milwaukee School of Choice Program that had impacted a lot of the students' lives who came from rougher backgrounds and especially cities that didn't have strong public education system. So I just thought that was important information to get out there.

I know the DeVos administration gets a lot of pushback and a lot of criticisms because of her federal budget cuts, but a lot of people don't see that it's tended to stimulate more localized and state-level initiatives. So Milwaukee was kind of unique in the sense because it was the only state that publicly recorded their citizens' criminal records. So they were able to use that data and match it with the students who were part of the Milwaukee School Choice Voucher Program. And then they were able to compare that metrics with public school students, those who attended traditional public schools. So I thought that was just important to put out there. And it's exactly why I love education policy and writing about it and fortunate to have the Daily Signal to give me that opportunity. And Josh, I think those two stories illustrate exactly the reason we have the Daily Signal.

I mean, there are stories that probably go underreported or unreported in other news outlets. And it's really important to have an outlet like the Daily Signal that is focused on policy. issues that focuses on putting human efface on some of those issues that you just described. So thank you for your work on both of those stories. How about you, Michaela? I'd have to say the story that comes to mind first is the one that combined podcasting and writing, which was the interview I did with Janine Stang for the podcast and then wrote about as she was calling for letters honoring Medal of Honor recipients in March and getting to be in the studio and talk to her over the telephone. And then corresponding with her and then finding out that the event was a success and all the letters

that they received, it just made me happy knowing that that story did do a lot of good because that's what we hope our stories do. Well, yeah, and she's somebody who we've followed for a number of years. I think we did our first story at the Daily Signal on Janine way back in 2015. So it's nice to do a follow-up. I mean, that's one thing that I think is lacking so often in journalism as people who actually take the time to keep in touch. So, Michaela, you learned an important lesson this past few months in terms of keeping in touch with people and actually following through.

Thank you for doing that. Of course. It's no secret that here in D.C. internships are extremely competitive. What would you two say to someone who's trying to decide between choosing an internship here at the Heritage Foundation versus another internship opportunity in this town because there are so many of them? I would say what sets the Heritage internship apart from others is not only the experience you get within. the department you're placed in, but also they provide you with opportunities to have policy briefings, learning more about different issues that maybe you didn't know about before. It is paid.

It's paid. You've got to throw that in there. And also, yesterday, Josh and I went to Mount Vernon with our intern class, and we've been to the Supreme Court, and, you know, they've really tried to make us feel fully immersed in D.C. in the culture. Yeah, I think it's great to have those policy briefings and those field trips to, you know, really contextualize your internship experience because I think you can sort of get into motion and get into routine and sort of get in that mundane flow of tasks. But, you know, when you have, and the thing about heritage is that they have a lot of experts and researchers who know what

they're talking about and knowledgeable about their subjects. So it's good to have them contextualize why exactly are we working here and what's the importance of conservatism. And we have first principles, lunches every week. And we have experts come in and talk about, you know, history and a variety of issues. And also, we're able to engage with speakers as well. And we have policy briefings. And it's great because you have students who interns who show strengths in certain policy areas. So they're able to, you know, nerd out on what they're passionate about.

And I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to Lindsey Burke and ask her a few questions, which is great. He's director of Ed Policy here. So, yeah, overall, it's been a mixture of fun and learning and also important work that we're doing. Well, Josh, you are also pulling double duty because as a National Journalism Center intern, you not only have the benefit of the Heritage Internship program, but also that one with the Young America's Foundation. So I want to ask you specifically that you had such a focus on journalism at a time when journalism is really trying to repair its trust with the public after, you know, seeing it declined so much. What are some of the lessons that you learned about being a journalist as you set out to do your next steps and career? Most importantly for me, I needed to, for one, I'm really heavily involved in social media. I use Twitter and Instagram. And I think prior to

this internship, at least, because I did write for the Daily Orange, which is Syracuse newspaper. And at the time, I would always voice my political views and, you know, say what candidates I was promoting and talk about issues, you know, really heavily. And that turned off a lot of people in the sense because, you know, they felt that like as a journalist, maybe I should keep those opinions to myself and try to represent myself as objective as possible. So I think here working at the Heritage Foundation, noticing the emphasis of policy and its effect on people has been important for me to at least stick to the policy side of things and even overall become as objective as possible. because I think social media you can get caught up into, you know, showing a bias towards certain candidates and certain people. And I think that could be detrimental in a lot of ways to journalists. So especially because of the examples that's set here and, you know, among the Daily Signal staff,

I've noticed they tend to try to remain as neutral as possible. Well, and I think fairness is important. And I think it's so true. I mean, we had Arthur Brooks on the show. And, I mean, he talked about how social media create those types of. challenges. So I hope that young people who are listening will take a step to think and not necessarily tweet their first thing that comes to mind because, yeah, it really can have an impact and sometimes an adverse effect on your own career, particularly if you're going into the world of journalism or media. Well, Michaela and Josh, we wanted to ask you in closing where you're headed next and what it is you hope to do in the future. I have another internship this summer starting

in June with MGM Resorts International in Las Vegas, so I'm going to die of heat, but that's okay. I will be working in global procurement on their team as an intern before going back to school in the fall, and I'll graduate April 2020, looking forward to that. I guess a big part of doing all these internships is trying to figure out where I want to go next in what aspect of communication I want to focus on in my career, because I love communication. communications, but I'm not exactly sure specifically what it is that I want to do yet. I did accept contributor position for the Daily Signal, and I'm really excited for that because not only would I have opportunities to report on an intersection of servitive values and minority

interests, but also I can do a lot of education policy reporting, which I'm interested in. So I'm really excited for that, and it's a contractor position, but, you know, it's somewhere to start, and you never know it may lead to something else. and I think regardless I'll always pursue any sort of journalistic path towards education issues. Well, I want to thank you for your contributions, and we look forward to continuing to work with you, Josh. I can tell you one thing. We hire a lot of Heritage Foundation interns here at the Heritage Foundation and Daily Signal, and I have one sitting right next to me, and that's Rachel.

Yes, I'm back. I want to give you the final word on this. What is your advice to those who might be listening and thinking about a career in D.C. are coming to work at the Daily Signal? I would just say come out and at least start with an internship. There's nothing like moving out to D.C., figuring out the city for yourself, working with incredible people here at the Heritage Foundation, from all of the experts we have here to people that work here in Combs and the Daily Signal.

So if you're curious, I would say definitely apply and reach out because you're not going to regret it. It's been a fun ride being here. So congrats to you, Michaela and Josh for what's coming next and for being here with us in the Daily Signal and Coms. We've loved having you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back with this week's Letters to the Editor. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at Letters at DailySignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast.

Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. So Rachel, who do you have this week? Jim Love writes to us about a story about Melissa Oden who survived a saline abortion attempt. Dear Daily Signal, thank you for Jenny Mountlebone's story about the woman who survived an abortion attempt by an abortion doctor to snuff out her life. Thank God this lady survived. Unfortunately, for every child like her, there are many, many more who have a chance to be born, but the results are not the same. I pray that more stories like this will continue to come out. This evil of abortion has got to end.

Stories like this, I believe, will help toward that end. And A.R. Bicker writes, Dear Daily Signal, Rachel Del Judas did a great, well-written and informative report on the true results that socialism has and the people that choose it for their form of government. So many young people who I know have fallen for the false hope and lies of the socialist honeypot. Even when I point out all of the countries that have tried it and failed, they say, oh, they just don't. didn't do it right. Thank you for all the hard work and dedication to the cause of freedom of conscience, liberty, and love of family and country. My best wishes for Rachel's journalistic future. Well, that was nice, Rachel. That was so kind of you, Mr. Bicker. Thank you for writing to us. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to letters at dailysignal.com

or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. We welcome Michaela Stedman back to the studio for this week's uplifting story.

Michaela, take it away. Thanks, Rob. April is Autism Awareness Month. In one school in California, each class colored puzzle pieces to hang on their classroom doors. Puzzle pieces are sometimes used to symbolize the complexity of autism and the diverse people and families who live with it. As one fourth grade classroom was working on their puzzle pieces, their fellow classmate, Rumari, raised his hand and asked to speak. He then told the class that he has autism and explained what that meant. Don't go rightfully by just judging them.

go by trying to be a friend and see other people who actually have it and make them feel like a somebody because for a very long time you guys have not known I had autotism. After he spoke, Rumari began answering questions from his class about what autism is. Then one student named Abigail raised her hand. This isn't a question, but I think that it doesn't. matter what a person does or if it may look weird or if they might make weird noises sometimes, that's okay. It's them. And it doesn't matter. Yes. They're good just the way they are. Like you Romari. Yeah. Ramari and Abigail's teacher, Miss Mo, received permission and shared the now

viral video of this interaction on Facebook. In her post, she said Rumari showed us us that there is no challenge or barrier that can stop him. With full knowledge, he explained the differences that may come when being autistic and how the spectrum is vast. He courageously spoke about his own differences and quirks while defining what it means to make everyone feel like a someone. I personally am grateful for students like Ramari and Abigail who shared the good news that every person is worth so much no matter what their weaknesses or strengths may be. We're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

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