Reality Journalist advocates square head to head

Four had reached the end of Elon’s Reality Journalist competition, yet victory would leave room for only two. That is one Elon student and her famous journalism candidate.

Julie Halm won first prize at a press conference Wednesday with her representation of the humanitarian journalist Sonia Nozario, thereby beating out Camille DeMere and investigative journalist Seymour Hersh for a perfect score on her final journalism project.  

The conference gave finalists Halm and DeMere one final chance to sway the popular vote. The contestants spent their time communicating what appealed to them most about their respective journalists.   

For DeMere, it was Hersh’s unrelenting mission to uncover the truth that made him so influential, especially in his most famous work to expose the My Lai massacre.

“He was really integral in exposing the terrible massacre that was covered up by the American army during the Vietnam War,” DeMere said. “He really has a lot of friends in high places. That’s how he gets most of his material.”

Halm realized that for Nozario it was finding people in the lowest places that made the most difference. “The lengths she goes to just to get her stories are unimaginable, which I really appreciate,” Halm said. Often Nozario writes on the grimy lives of drug addicts and abused children, topics that take her to the bottom of the societal totem pole.

Sometimes these assignments take Nozario to unfamiliar places, but according to Halm she chooses to be there to get the full experience.

“Largely she finds her stories by showing up at these dangerous places, which is risky but really strengthens her work” Halm said.

While Nozario faced personal-safety issues in her work, Seymour Hersh faced the difficulty of getting people to talk. DeMere, a print and online news major, sympathized with her Reality candidate.

“I think that it’s really easy to give up when people block you out and don’t call you back, and that is one thing that Hersh has always run into in the work that he has done,” DeMere said. “It’s important to persevere and to have the tenacity that is one of the essential elements of journalism.”

Halm picked out a different trait of merit within Nozario’s writing. She thought it was a testament to Nozario’s skill that the journalist was able to balance in grains of hope with her depressing glimpses of life.

“Somewhere in Nozario’s work tends to be this glimmering bit of humanity,” Halm said. “I think she has a brilliant way of showing the amounts of good and bad in the world.”

Though both of these journalists lean toward more negatively themed stories, they do it out of a sense of responsibility to expose the tragic injustices of the human condition.

DeMere was impressed that Hersh took up this demand for accountability, by persistently writing and pursuing the exposure of military corruption. Halm agreed that Nozario was also making a difference, by relocating children into foster homes away from abusive relationships.

Though there could only be one Reality Journalist in the end, both students were imparted with their idea of what a successful journalist requires.

“In one word, passion,” Halm said. “The key thing is to love what you do and do what you love. If you don’t care, you will never have the drive to be a great journalist.”

Passion is certainly evidenced in both journalists’ writing, as it takes a caring heart to tackle the darker aspects of life. But it also takes dedication, according to DeMere. “I know that there is no way that any of these stories would come to light if these people didn’t keep after it.”

But they kept going and finalists DeMere and Halm kept going, and the results were successful, looking at where it all got them.