Journalism requires courage and a commitment to pursuing the truth, even in challenging environments. Thomas McKenna and Jonas Du, two talented students participating in the TFAS Student Journalism Association, understand this. Through the Student Journalism Association, TFAS supports young independent journalists who approach journalism through a lens of sound objective reporting and a desire to find the truth. In their chat with host Roger Ream, McKenna and Du discuss their TFAS experience, how real-world experience in journalism is often more valuable than classroom learning, the importance of diverse viewpoints, and why it’s imperative to support young journalists.
Thomas McKenna is a junior at Hillsdale College studying political economy and journalism, is the city news editor of The Collegian (Hillsdale’s student newspaper) and interned this past summer with National Review.
Jonas Du is a senior at Columbia University studying political science and economics, is the founder/editor-in-chief of Sundial, a monthly magazine of political and cultural discourse at Columbia, and interned this past summer at The Free Press.
Episode Transcript
The transcript below is lightly edited for clarity.
Roger Ream [00:00:02] Welcome to the Liberty + Leadership Podcast, a conversation with TFAS alumni, faculty, and friends who are making an impact today. I’m your host, Roger Ream. Today, I’m very excited to be joined by two talented students from the TFAS Student Journalism Association. The TFAS Student Journalism Association supports young, independent journalists who approached journalism through a lens of sound, objective reporting and a desire to find the truth. TFAS enables these young journalists to have a platform to develop their skills, voice and network. My first guest is Thomas McKenna, a junior at Hillsdale College, studying political economy and journalism. Thomas is the city news editor of The Collegian, Hillsdale student newspaper. This summer, Thomas attended our TFAS summer program in Washington, where he interned with National Review. In that role, he covered such stories as the anti-Israel protests in Washington, D.C., the reaction on Capitol Hill in the aftermath of the June presidential debate, and the expansion of assisted suicide in Canada. In addition to his reporting, he has collaborated on speeches and op-eds for both members of Congress and corporate executives. Thomas, welcome to the show.
Thomas McKenna [00:01:33] Thanks for having me.
Roger Ream [00:01:34] I’m also joined by Jonas Du, senior at Columbia University, who is studying political science and economics and is the editor in chief and founder of Sundial, a monthly magazine of political and cultural discourse at Columbia. A contributor for Young Voices, he regularly writes about higher education and free speech issues, and his work has been featured in USA today, National Review and Reason. In fact, Jonas was an editorial intern at Reason in the summer of 2023 and this past summer joined The Free Press. Jonas, so good to have you with us.
Jonas Du [00:02:16] Thank you for having me, Roger.
Roger Ream [00:02:18] We have much to discuss over the next 30 minutes. Let’s begin with me posing a question to each of you about things on your campus. I know you come from very different campus environments, Columbia and Hillsdale. So, let me begin with you, Jonas, and the campus of Columbia, which was, in a sense, ground zero for anti-Israel protests. What was it like to cover events there this past year?
Jonas Du [00:02:44] Well, I’ll say that it was a surreal experience, to say the least. Campus did not feel like a college campus for all of April and all of May at Columbia. And to cover it and to be on the ground as they were setting up the encampment, as they were occupying Hamilton Hall, it was a surreal moment that I knew it was going to be national news, but at the same time knew was an incredible opportunity to develop as a student journalist and to witness firsthand and have sort of unprecedented access. When they were occupying Hamilton Hall, I was just stepping out of Butler Library, our main library, getting ready to study for finals, and it was around midnight, and I see the mob of protesters in the encampment and from all around campus coming towards Hamilton Hall and everyone’s around me saying: “Oh, they’re planning to occupy it.” So, I immediately rushed to the doorstep of Hamilton Hall as they were arriving there. I got there sort of before most of the mob and I was right by the door, taking pictures, posting on Twitter what I was seeing, and gradually I was surrounded by all of these people that were trying to form a human chain. To have an experience like that as a junior in college is not anything you would expect as a college student, but especially as a student journalist. It’s been a crazy environment, but it’s also been very fulfilling to be able to tell the story from an independent perspective.
Roger Ream [00:04:19] By being there when that was taking place, that generated opportunities for you to be on national news to talk about it, right? That must have been an interesting experience.
Jonas Du [00:04:29] Absolutely. I get accused by the people on the left at campus for capitalizing on the opportunity to go on national news and develop my career. And my response to that is always: “Look, there needs to be people who are willing to tell the truth, are willing to call out anti-Semitism when there is anti-Semitism, are willing to say “there are people that support terrorism, and there are people that are program us on campus and this is what I’m seeing,” and to be able to share that story and tell people that that’s what’s happening, that’s much more fulfilling than sort of any sort of personal gain that I might be getting from this.
Roger Ream [00:05:11] One other question about that and then I have a question for Thomas, but at the time you were there and that was taking place, did you feel personally threatened at all? Was it a safe environment for you to be in right in the midst of it all?
Jonas Du [00:05:26] Well, what I’ll say is that there were a lot of concerns from the Jewish community about student safety. Personally, I’m not Jewish. I felt that I was physically going to be safe. Although, on social media you could see that I was among the reporters that was by the doors of Hamilton Hall, and they were texting me: “Please, like, get out of there. What are you doing?” And so, it did get a little bit tricky at times, and I was recognized because of what I did on national media, what I said, telling the truth, and people recognized me and stopped me and said nasty things. But that’s just part of the job, and that’s something that I’ve learned to accept.
Roger Ream [00:06:06] Well, Thomas, Hillsdale College, of course, has a different type of campus environment, I would assume than than Columbia. It’s got a reputation as a conservative university and probably leads some people to think that everyone’s of one mind and the public square isn’t a place for debate and discussion, but what what is it really like at Hillsdale, and what’s it like to practice journalism there?
Thomas McKenna [00:06:31] Well, Hillsdale is more conservative than other schools, but that certainly doesn’t mean that everyone there thinks the same thing. I’ve had some great conversations with my fellow students. A lot of the professors disagree, and it’s great to hear from from different sides of the debate there, but I will say that it’s much more civil. A week before Judge Kyle Duncan faced a lot of protests at Stanford Law School, he was at Hillsdale. And, of course, there were no protests for what he was saying. Covering journalism in Hillsdale, we don’t have the same experience as some students at Columbia, for example. So, I haven’t had the opportunity to cover protests like that at Hillsdale, but at the same time, there’s plenty of journalism to be done. There’s always things going on in local and state politics in Michigan. When the state legislature repealed the right to work law there, when we saw this past week or few weeks ago that the Michigan Supreme Court is going to allow a minimum wage increase to go through, that affects the local businesses around us. And so, it gives the opportunity for a student like me to go out and talk to local businesses and say: How is a minimum wage increase going to affect your business?” And then we can cover that for students on our campus and also for people in town who read our student newspaper.
Roger Ream [00:07:53] How often does your paper come out?
Thomas McKenna [00:07:54] There’s a weekly paper. We put it up online and we also do a print version.
Roger Ream [00:08:00] You have a pretty big staff?
Thomas McKenna [00:08:02] Yeah, we’ve got probably 20 or 25 staffers. We’ve got editors for each of our 6 or 7 sections. We’ve got assistance for those sections. So, it’s a great place to develop as a student journalist because you’re getting feedback from senior students as well as professors there in the journalism department.
Roger Ream [00:08:21] Now, Jonas, you’re involved in starting a publication at Columbia, “The Sundial.” What is that experience been like? As I understand, it’s a monthly.
Jonas Du [00:08:31] That’s correct. It’s a monthly print publication, and we publish online regularly as well. And so, my experience starting “The Sundial” has been extremely fulfilling. I spent a year as an editor on the Columbia Daily Spectator’s opinion section. That’s the main newspaper of our campus and I learned a lot there. I developed basic reading and journalism skills for journalistic writing, but I also experienced firsthand what the culture in the legacy media today is, which is that people, especially in editorial journalism, are very much willing to suppress, ignore or hide certain viewpoints out of political convenience, and that I got increasingly more of a problem as I developed at the spectator. What is going to be most fulfilling for me in my remaining years of college is going to be trying to change this behemoth of an organization that has over 300 staffers from the inside, or is it going to be to try to shake things up and start a publication that’s actually going to get people talking again, that’s going to share viewpoint diversity, that’s going to even pursue investigative journalism. And ultimately, I think I made the right decision, and the reception for “The Sundial” has been amazing, especially, given what’s going on at Columbia this past semester. We’ve had a lot of people come out and say: “Hey, we really like what you’re doing. I’m not seeing this kind of content anywhere else and I can’t wait to see where you guys go in the fall.” So, that’s been very fulfilling. At the same time, there are people that think that free speech is a conservative cause. I think that viewpoint diversity is a conservative cause, and those people will always be there, but I think it’s a very positive start now.
Roger Ream [00:10:16] TFAS started the Student Journalism Association a little over a year ago, with our aim to promote a more vibrant news media, more vibrant environment on campus for journalists and to develop talent at the collegiate level for careers in journalism. Thomas, has the Student Journalism Association, your participation had been helpful to you?
Thomas McKenna [00:10:39] Absolutely. As a member of the Student Journalism Association, I had the opportunity to go to one of their conferences in Chicago, and there were two great things that I got to experience there. One was getting to meet other students from other schools and learn about their publications, because their schools are very different from Hillsdale, they’re either bigger or they’re much less conservative. And so, that leads to a different environment for student journalists there. But I also got to hear from some of the pros. We heard from Christine Rosen, who’s on the commentary podcast and a fellow at AEI and getting to hear about her experience as a commentator and what her day looks like and what she reads. Those are all things that help to inform your development as a student journalist. And so, having both of those opportunities, in Chicago, that that was a great experience.
Roger Ream [00:11:33] And, Jonas, what was your expectation in getting involved in our student journalism Association? How has that been so far?
Jonas Du [00:11:41] So, going into the SJA, I expected to meet people from different schools who had done similar things, sort of a network of supports, professional support, especially, institutional support, as well as potential connections with future opportunities in the media and in journalism. And I would say that SJA absolutely has fulfilled all of my expectations and more. I had the opportunity to spend two days at the New York City Conference, the Northeast Regional Conference, and there I met lots of very, very interesting student journalists who were also interested in spreading viewpoint diversity, in doing investigative journalism that their mainstream papers on their campuses weren’t doing. And so, to connect with them was an incredibly valuable experience, and even this summer, I’m running into them across the northeast. I was at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. They had a summer conference, and I met SJA people there, and we had a great time catching up and just bringing people together like that. I think it’s a huge part of SJA. And beyond that, I’m really excited to see how this association grows, and I can’t wait to meet more and more people. And at the New York City conference, I would say a highlight was getting to hear from Tim Carney, whose work I really respect, and he really emphasized the importance of going on the ground and talking to people and reporting, which I think is absolutely important.
Roger Ream [00:13:09] Now, Thomas, you participated in our summer journalism program in Washington, D.C., and interned at the National Review. Could you talk a little bit about that program that you attended and as well as your internship?
Thomas McKenna [00:13:23] The SJA program this summer was fantastic. I got to meet other students from from other schools and got to know them over a few weeks, living in the same dorm and then going to the same classes and hearing the same guest lectures. Having conversations with them was a great way to develop a wider perspective and learn from them and learn from my peers. We got to hear from some of the the professional journalists in D.C. One talk that stood out to me was from an NPR reporter who had been reporting on Capitol Hill for a while, and she was able to tell us the inside scoop about how to develop a beat and develop sources, and I ended up running into her while I was covering Capitol Hill for National Review a bit this summer, and just saw her in the hallway and got to talk to her there, and just being able to see a familiar face in that setting, that’s something that the program gave me. As for my internship, I mean, a huge part of my internship was getting to take a Capitol Hill press pass, go up to the halls of Congress and ask members of Congress questions. One of the best experiences this summer was right after the presidential debate, the kind of blew up the presidential race, Congress was back in session after the July 4th recess, and this was the first opportunity to put members of Congress on the record about what they thought about the president’s reelection bid. So, I went up there with some National Review reporters who showed me the ropes, who showed me how to go up to a congressman and say: “I’m Thomas McKenna with National Review. Do you think the president should drop out?” And just being able to put members of Congress on the record. As somebody who’s a rising junior in college, that was a fantastic experience.
Roger Ream [00:15:10] Was not a dull summer for covering the news, and that’s great you had that opportunity. Now, Jonas, I don’t know whether we had a role in your internship placement, but you had an internship at The Free Press. Can you talk a little bit about that internship and kinds of things you did there?
Jonas Du [00:15:30] The Free Press has been an incredible company to work for so far. It’s been about ten weeks, and I’ve got one week left, and I would say that at The Free Press, I’ve had the opportunity to take on assignments and to pursue projects that I would never have the opportunity to do in the legacy media and The Free Press is very exciting because it is a startup and it is disrupting the journalism industry, especially the mainstream legacy media and to be a part of a very scrappy culture, a very like on the ground reporting culture, especially when it comes to things going on in New York City. That’s been very valuable. And so, I’ve had the opportunity to write personal essays based on my experiences at Columbia, as well as my other thoughts in social media and other topics, but I’ve also had the opportunity to go out and report. I covered the court hearings for the Columbia protesters, that were occupied Hamilton Hall. So, I sat in the courtroom for a day and I watched as each of their charges got dismissed by the Manhattan DA and I co-wrote a report with Francesca Block, one of the reporters at the Free Press. Her and I have actually been collaborating on a couple of other investigations as well, and I’m hoping to continue into the fall. So, I’ve just gotten very, very valuable experience with print journalism, but also with video. They’re quickly growing their video team. And so, I had the opportunity to help build out their New York City studio, to sort of learn the ropes of how that side of the editorial board works. And so, it’s been a very diverse experience, and it’s been a very fun experience this summer so far.
Roger Ream [00:17:14] Can you comment on whether the kinds of real world experience you’re getting through your internships is probably much superior than if you were taking courses in journalism and learning it in the classroom. Would you agree with that, Thomas?
Thomas McKenna [00:17:29] One thing that one of our journalism professors at Hillsdale says is the best way to learn journalism is by doing journalism. That’s John Miller, who heads our journalism program there, and I think that’s absolutely true. And one of the best ways to do that is through an internship at a place like National Review, where you’ve got veteran reporters who are showing you how to do the job, just the hard skills. But at the same time, combining that with classes and other subjects is going to give you a better sense of the field of economics when you go to do reporting on economics. You’re understanding of supply and demand and how price floors cause shortages is going to influence your reporting on something like the minimum wage or a right to work law. So, absolutely, it’s important to learn journalism outside of the classroom, but at Hillsdale, I’ve been able to combine that with classes in journalism as well.
Roger Ream [00:18:29] And now, Thomas, this summer while you were in our program, you also took a course in economics. Is that correct?
Thomas McKenna [00:18:34] Yes, sir. I took a course called “Economies in Transition” with Professor Rosalino Candela at George Mason, and the course started with a basic understanding of property rights and prices and the importance of understanding scarcity and economics. But by the end of it, we had gone through case studies of the Soviet Union and China and Venezuela and Poland, and going through those case studies, through and looking through the lens of market economics, that was a great experience that’s going to inform my reporting going forward, whether it be on economic policy or on entrepreneurship. That understanding of economics helps your journalism move forward.
Roger Ream [00:19:22] Another question I wanted to ask you, Thomas. I I’ve been told that you had the opportunity to interview Mark Simon, who was a colleague of Jimmy Lai’s at Apple Daily in Hong Kong, in 2022. We had the opportunity to honor Jimmy Lai at our annual journalism dinner. We gave him our Kenneth Tomlinson Award for Courage in Journalism. Unfortunately, he’s been in prison, in solitary confinement in Hong Kong now for several years while they attempt to put on a long show trial of him. Could you talk a little bit about that story you wrote, because I have such great admiration for Jimmy Lai’s courage and his defense of a free press and democracy?
Thomas McKenna [00:20:05] Yeah. Mr. Simon came to Hillsdale campus, a few months ago and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had as a student journalist, getting to interview him and write a story about him. I mean, one example of courage, from somebody who was working for a dissident newspaper, was one of Mr. Lai’s senior advisers. He was in danger, too, of the same crackdown that that came down on, on Mr. Lai. So, getting to to hear from him about not only Mr. Lai’s courage, but but his courage and hear that example from somebody in journalism, that’s really inspiring to to someone who is in a country with a free press. But you always have to be on guard and grateful for those freedoms that we have in America.
Roger Ream [00:20:56] Now, Jonas, you’ve started a paper publication at Columbia. You’re going into your senior year. You had a great experience this summer at The Free Press. How do you see the year unfolding? Are you going to be trying to recruit more students to write for the paper? Are you hoping that when you finish your senior year to go into a career in journalism?
Jonas Du [00:21:19] We’re definitely hoping to recruit lots of freshmen, lots of young talent at Columbia for The Sundial, because I think that people are really hungry for something different, for something new and exciting, for something that repair sort of the damage that’s been done over the past year. Now, do I think that the protests are going to get worse? Absolutely. One of the organizers of the encampments just came out and said that encampments are a new baseline, so it’s not going to be an uneventful year for sure. So, we’ll have a lot to cover. But absolutely, we’re trying to recruit heterodox writers, people from the left and the right to come on and join in our mission to support free speech and viewpoint diversity. As for my future after my senior year, I do think that I want to pursue a career in media and in journalism. I’m hesitant to go work for the legacy media. Of course, based on my experiences at The Free Press and at Columbia with The Sundial on the Daily Spectator. So, I would love to be part of something new and different, such as The Free Press. I really think it’s an exciting time to be in journalism. There’s a lot of changes going on in the industry, and I think that the work of 2000 supporting the SJA has been absolutely crucial in supporting the next generation in that industry.
Roger Ream [00:22:39] Now, Thomas, from what you’ve said, you’ve done some, I guess, speechwriting or work in that field, but you’ve also now got some great experience you’re developing in journalism. You’ve got some time to make a decision on a career, but has the work you’ve done in journalism really lit a passion in you for that as a career objective?
Thomas McKenna [00:23:00] Absolutely. I just think back to one of the first journalism internships I did in high school where my town during the Stanley Cup finals renamed itself Capitalsville for the Washington Capitals, and Thomas in High School got to go out and cover that story and get a sense of the adrenaline rush of chasing down a story and finding more information and turning that around quickly and giving that to the public. So, as much as I love speechwriting and ghostwriting, and that might be something I want to do in the future. Right now, I’m just super passionate about journalism in the same way I was in that first internship, and so, it’s something I want to continue. I definitely want to continue reporting. Where that takes me, we’ll see, but I definitely got a passion for reporting right now.
Roger Ream [00:23:47] Well, our Center on Excellence in Journalism and our student Journalism Association, that’s part of it, were established just over a year ago because we saw just a tremendous need to support conservative young people on campus, independent minded people and people in the center who felt like they didn’t have an opportunity or a voice. What would you say to the supporters of our Student Journalism Association as to its importance to you as journalists on campus?
Jonas Du [00:24:16] I think that the first thing I will say is that it’s incredibly important, at least for me, to see that there are other people who want to pursue the same things as me, but also share the same values. That’s the important part. There’s a lot of people who want to go into journalism for the wrong reasons, but there’s also people that want to go into it because they want to correct the narrative that’s out there. They want to go out, investigate the stories that aren’t being sold. I think that TFAS and the SJA are absolutely about that, and it starts on college campuses as people are pursuing collegiate level journalism, then they bring those skills and those networks and connections they developed to their internships and then on to their professional careers. So, absolutely, I think that the network and the community that these kinds of programs provide is so important.
Roger Ream [00:25:08] Thomas, you’ve got John Miller and a great program at Hillsdale, a great newspaper there. But, you’ve expressed your opinion about the value of the Student Journalism Association, but perhaps you have a message for the people that support it.
Thomas McKenna [00:25:21] Well, I’ll say, you know, when I went to the SJA conference in Chicago and when I was working with and learning with other SJA fellows this summer, I saw the hunger for programs like SJA on American college campuses. And that’s something that needs support. The demand is there, right? But people who want programs like SJA, who want to write for these publications, they need the support of of people who are friends of the program to help them accomplish that goal. And so, as I go forward and try to develop a journalism career, I’m going to be looking to SJA for support, as I try to navigate D.C., and navigate a field that isn’t always friendly to people who share my values. And so, it’s just still so important to have programs like SJA that help to meet students and bring them together, when they want to pursue journalism but are facing a field that that doesn’t share their values.
Jonas Du [00:26:25] And if I could add something. Supporters of SJA are not just supporting student journalists like Thomas and I, who want to go out and start papers, work on existing papers and pursue internships, but they’re also supporting a broader culture shift at colleges like Columbia, where there is a need for more diversity of opinion, where there is a need for a space where people who are more moderate or more open to free speech even can come together and discuss and write about things and have nuanced conversations. If you start there on college campuses, that’s going to impact the next generation of people that are in public life in the future. And so, I think that’s also a very valuable impact.
Roger Ream [00:27:11] Well, you can count on us to be supportive of you as you finish your college careers and go into journalism. We want to be part of the process of helping you advance and supporting you when you are in newsrooms. I agree. I mean, our objective in starting the Student Journalism Association was to try to produce more young journalists with who are independent minded, who are going to go into the profession the year or two of a larger number of young people, college students who we’re working with and on campus papers, we helped establish some new ones this year and we’re supporting some preexisting ones. We’ve got great plans this academic year to develop some more papers at other schools that don’t have them now, because it’s important to have an independent voice on campus that’s reporting on stories and getting information out to students and recruiting young people to work for those papers who could be developed into talented journalists in the future. So, we’re really excited about what the two of you have been doing and your work to get others involved in this. So, we hope you’ll stay active in the network in the coming year. What would you say, Jonas, to young people you want to recruit to work for The Sundial? How do you encourage them to come right for you?
Jonas Du [00:28:32] Well, I think my message for them would be that, the truth matters, but the truth is hard to pursue. And do you want to be a part of an organization that’s going to actively pursue the truth and actively contribute and improve the campus discourse environment? That’s one thing that I’ve learned in journalism is that the facts are actually very hard to get right sometimes, and you really have to invest yourself and dig deep into a story. Even when you’re writing opinion journalism, you’ve got to dig deep and make sure that your research is in order, that your evidence is in order and that your writing sounds good. And so, while a lot of people, especially coming into college, might dismiss journalism in favor of sort of more lucrative careers or more sort of traditional finance clubs and things like that, I would actually highly encourage them to take a hard look at journalism in writing, especially if they’re interested in politics and culture. That’s absolutely important that we had smart right people coming in to help tell the truth.
Roger Ream [00:29:37] Well, very well said. Thomas, anything you want to add?
Thomas McKenna [00:29:41] I’ll just say that the opportunities that I’ve gotten through the Student Journalism Association are going to propel me, hopefully, into a career in political journalism, and I encourage anyone who’s interested in journalism to to get involved again. The best way to learn journalism is by doing journalism, and learning from the best, and that’s something that I’ve gotten to do through the TFAS program.
Roger Ream [00:30:04] I applaud you both for the work you’re doing on campus. When I was a student at Vanderbilt University, I was a political activist on campus, but we also started a monthly publication, and there were times where it was stressful. We were regularly attacked by the mainstream campus paper, which loved to engage more in name calling than in civil discourse. So, there were some, stressful moments, but, it was all well worth it. And as you both stressed in your remarks today, you know that the importance of that work you do as a journalist and trying to get the story out, trying to report the truth on what’s happening on campus is so vital. So, I applaud you both. I appreciate you being with me today as a guest on the Liberty and Leadership Podcast. So, thanks very much and we’ll look forward to working with you in the coming years.
Jonas Du [00:30:58] Looking forward to it. Thank you for having me.
Thomas McKenna [00:31:00] Thanks for having me.
Roger Ream [00:31:02] Thank you for listening to the Liberty + Leadership Podcast. If you have a comment or question, please drop us an email at podcast@TFAS.org and be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app and leave a five-star review. Liberty + Leadership is produced at Podville Media. I’m your host, Roger Ream, and until next time, show courage in things large and small.
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TFAS has reached more than 49,000 students and professionals through academic programs, fellowships and seminars. Representing more than 140 countries, TFAS alumni are courageous leaders throughout the world forging careers in politics, government, public policy, business, philanthropy, law and the media.
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