By Kylie Graham University of Nebraska-Lincoln Mary Sanchez spent her Friday nights like many other teen-agers watching high school football games. Unlike most teens, Sanchez spent her time covering those games for local newspapers. Sanchez was so focused on becoming a journalist that at age 17, she was reporting on high school football games for $15 a story. Sanchez is a a member of the editorial board at the Kansas City Star and a syndicated columnist whose work is distributed by Tribune Content Agency. She has worked at the Kansas City Star for 33 years. A normal day for Sanchez starts with a 9:30 a.m. editorial board meeting where she collaborates with other editorial board members on what the Star’s editorial position will be on issues such as political endorsements, an execution or city government. The editorial board decides the paper’s position on newsworthy topics. “The board also has regular guests; people literally pitching their viewpoints, their proposal of one thing or another,” she said. Sanchez has spent her entire career at the Star. “I’m really unusual. I wrote for the Star when I was in college,” said Sanchez, who was a freelancer for the Star in college. Sanchez first met some editors at the Star when she won a high school journalism contest for her freelance sports writing. After the ceremony and while she was away at college, she “just kept bugging them." Sanchez started as a reporter with the Star in May 1985. Since then, she has been a metro columnist, a race and ethnicity reporter, an education reporter, a higher education reporter and a general assignment reporter. Sanchez has remained at the Star since her summer internship, however she is aware that most journalists have not had this luck. She has seen colleagues leave and return to the Star throughout their careers. Sanchez predicts that the younger generations will see more movement and change in their careers. Sanchez said in other jobs workers see the same people over and over, but with journalism reporters are exposed to so much diversity. Sanchez recalls she used to do a lot of work with immigrants and refugees when she was a reporter. Sanchez has written many pieces on culture and cultural changes. Sanchez covered topics including immigration, civil rights cases, interviews with Martin Luther King Jr.’s friends, and veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. Sanchez said she prefers writing long columns. However, she remains on the board because she believes her experiences as a reporter gives her a unique perspective on issues that the other board members don’t possess. Sanchez graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri, and worked at the college newspaper starting as a freshman. She also received training at the University of California at Berkeley. In college, Sanchez’s favorite journalism class was communication law, which focused on free speech, the history of the press and law. Students learned to look critically at stories, which Sanchez still does to this day. Sanchez encourages students to learn balance and to be healthy with their workload. She also advised, "Read and consume as much as you can.”
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A note about the content: This site showcases the final projects of University of Nebraska-Lincoln editing students. Each semester, students pick a journalist or communications professional to profile. This is their work.
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