Portland, Ore. is a good ways from Knoxville, which meant that 21-year-old Suzanna McCloskey had a fair amount of time to think about how she had not won the scholarship she applied for.
“I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t get it, but I was kind of bummed out,” McCloskey, a senior in journalism and electronic media, said.
On the way back to Knoxville, McCloskey experienced the opposite reaction.
“I think I screamed a little and the flight attendant gave me a weird look,” she said. “But I was really excited.”
McCloskey received a voicemail on her way back from Spring Break saying that she was one of the nine winners in the Roy W. Howard National Collegiate Reporting Competition awarded by the Scripps Howard Foundation. The winners receive an all-expense paid trip to Japan over the summer.
McCloskey applied for the trip and scholarship by writing an essay about how she had never studied abroad as well as getting recommendation letters sent to the Scripps Howard Foundation.
While some high schools have newspapers where one can gain writing experience, McCloskey wasn’t so lucky. Instead, she became the trailblazer.
“We started it as a group and we made it on the WordPad on the computer,” she said. “It was fossil, but I really liked it. I really liked interviewing people and talking to people. It was never boring.”
After seeing the constant excitement that journalism brought, McCloskey thought that this might be what she wanted to do.
This became even clearer as she stumbled onto TNJN.com, where she is now the managing editor.
“There was never a boring moment and there’s always something crazy happening that someone’s doing to write about,” she said. “You’re not usually just sitting in an office for eight hours a day, not talking to anyone.”
Eric Vreeland, city editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, hired her as an intern in the summer of 2011 and said she carried herself very well.
“She seemed she had a lot of poise and maturity,” Vreeland said. “She’s a very capable person and really has done a lot for her age and her years of experience.”
But something that really stood out for Vreeland was how teachable McCloskey was.
“She learned quickly,” he said. “If we did an editing session and we talked about how to sharpen up a lead or how to segue into a long and complicated story, it was the sort of thing where she would learn it quickly and you would see improvement from one story to the next. So, you felt like it was worth your time coaching her because she took it to heart and tried to implement what we were showing her.”
That teachable spirit has paid dividends, as McCloskey will be making her first trip abroad this summer.
“I’ve never been out of the country,” she said. “I’m most looking forward to experiencing a different culture. I’m going to eat some awesome food. Japan seems like one of the most interesting places I can think of, so I’m quite excited that I’m getting the opportunity to go there.”
