Minnesota’s new state reporter: High school class unleashed a love for journalism she didn’t know she had – InForum

ST. PAUL — Mary Murphy didn’t know she liked reporting until she took a high school journalism class, based on advice from classmates who told her it would be an easy A.

“It wasn’t the easiest of the 10, but I got an A,” she says, referring to the course she took at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, where she graduated in 2016.

On October 1, Murphy started a new job as a Minnesota correspondent for Forum Communications Co., the parent company of The Forum.

Murphy said that before taking the aforementioned journalism class in high school, she was unaware of how important unbiased reporting is to democracy and the healthy functioning of society in general.

After high school, she continued to pursue her interest in journalism and in 2020, she graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a degree in journalism and political science.

After interning in the Washington State Legislature for the Washington State Journal, Murphy said she began to understand the meaning of a phrase she had long heard but never quite understood: Find a job you love and you will not working another day. your life.

“It was incredibly energizing,” she said of her internship.

Last summer, Murphy did freelance work for the Seattle Times and Cascade PBS in Seattle.

Murphy said one story she covered for Cascade PBS that she is particularly proud of was about a new law passed by the Washington Legislature that allows DACA recipients to be hired as police officers.

As she wrote in her story, former President Barack Obama introduced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012, which provided protection from deportation for immigrants who came to the United States as children.

Murphy’s story noted that even before Washington passed the new DACA law, the state offered DACA recipients a number of options, including access to college financial aid and professional licensing fields such as teaching and nursing.

Murphy said the new law allowing DACA recipients in Washington state to become police officers was met with resistance from some, adding that she did her best to include in her story the voices of DACA recipients who were officers and their reasons for doing so. do this.

“It’s one thing to report on the policy, it’s another to get to know the people affected by it,” she said.

As a reporter, Murphy said she welcomes feedback on stories.

“Even though it is critical, I think it is important that the public comes into direct contact with journalists. We want to know what people want to hear about and how they respond to the information we give them,” she added.

Of all the jobs she could have found after college, Murphy said covering state news and lawmakers in the Minnesota Capitol was a stroke of luck.

“Political reporting is a coveted branch of journalism,” she said. “I’m grateful I got my pick of the litter.”