Today is a New Day
By Ellen Pham
Although change can be scary, Veronica Ogbe is inspired to use her talents to transform the communities around her for the better.
Veronica, 17, is a strong advocate for diversity. The Pinehurst, N.C., native believes diversity is important because it makes people think, changes people’s viewpoints and educates them.
Veronica has known she wanted to be a journalist since she was 8 years old. It wasn’t until her junior year in high school that she joined her school’s newspaper and officially delved into the field.
Her experience writing for her school’s newspaper led her to apply to the Chuck Stone Program.
“I wanted to learn how to construct words better and put them into sentences that really get to the point,” Veronica said.
In the future, Veronica wants to help change the world through her journalism career.
“I want to report on things that not many journalists take into consideration,” Veronica said. “I want to reach out to those who don’t really have the chance for their voices to be heard but want to get their information out there”. Ogbe plans to use journalism to support education, particularly students at schools that cannot afford new textbooks or technology.
“I would like to help them because their learning process is slowed down compared to students at other schools that have more student funding,” Veronica said.
Veronica also wants to use her knowledge to shed light on how journalism can improve its diversity. She admits that most students in her high school journalism class do not appreciate diversity.
“Everyone mostly keeps to themselves,” Veronica said. “We’re not open to communication, which has a negative impact on how much we grow especially since we’re journalists and communication is important.”
“It makes it hard for them to grow when they don’t want to step outside of their comfort zone,” Veronica said. “It doesn’t give diversity a chance to blossom.”
She hopes her work encourages her readers to be open-minded about the concept of diversity and appeals to younger audiences.
“Mostly it’s older people telling the news. If they [the media organizations] used social media to help tell the news like how CNN student news does it would make it more interesting for young people,” Veronica said.
She plans to move to New York State for college and major in journalism. Eventually, she would like to work at the Today Show.
“I really like how it [Today Show] doesn’t just stick to one thing,” Veronica said, ”They can talk about serious news then switch to fashion. It’s diverse.”
Veronica is determined to use her career to help solve serious problems plaguing society.
“I would like to bring attention to issues that may not seem to be like a big deal at the time and have them noticed by the world,” Veronica said.