A look back at my time at TNR

When The Orange County Register changed ownership in the spring of 2016 and I was laid off, I felt like I might not stay in journalism. It was my first job out of college, reporting is hard to break into, and I was lucky I lived at home and could even afford my student loans, bills, the usual on the salary of an entry-level staff writer.

I applied and applied, and on the same day that I got a job offer to do public relations for a DC-area museum I got the offer for the New Republic’s editorial internship. I decided to take the leap, pass up what would have been a more stable income, and move to DC on two weeks notice with no place to live.

I moved into the spare room of a former journalism professor, who had just moved to DC after she got a job at Georgetown. Two weeks later I moved in with some strangers I met online.

New Republic was eye-opening. Its writers and editors are sharp and thoughtful and have a pulse on things I didn’t even know existed when I arrived.

I spent a lot of time helping copy-edit, pitching blog posts and longer stories, formatting and inserting print copy for web, and helping with email newsletters.

At the New Republic, I worked my first presidential debate, learned to write editorial, and got my first taste of DC political journalism. I didn’t spend the amount of time I planned at the publication because I moved to The Hill, but it was a great experience and I sometimes wonder what else I could have learned if I stayed a bit longer.

Here are some/most of the pieces I wrote at The New Republic (which I remind you is a magazine that expresses opinion)

The North Dakota Access Pipeline is about to become a big issue.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton skirted the issue of climate change.

Why Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto is so controversial.

Paul Ryan dare not speaketh the name of Donald Trump.

Georgetown University will offer “preferential status” to the descendants of the 272 slaves it sold in 1838.

Thanks to France’s surging far right, Nicolas Sarkozy has come out as a climate truther.

The future of equal education requires a trauma-informed classroom.

Al Gore, millennial whisperer?

It’s official: Climate change is a threat to our national security

Donald Trump’s environmental team is a climate change nightmare.