All over the world, both reporters and readers of newspapers large and small are heard bemoaning the so-called “death” of print journalism. Due to the widespread and ever-expanding use of technology, many claim that print journalism is quickly becoming obsolete. But according to Sarah Lyall, a reporter for the New York Times who takes a special interest in covering stories pertaining to Oxford, students today who are interested in pursuing a career as a journalist should not be deterred by any such beliefs.
Born and raised in New York City, Ms. Lyall says that as a child, she loved reading her hometown paper – which just happened to be the New York Times. She viewed reading the news in print “as a way to find out about and be engaged with what was happening in the world.” She goes on to explain the development of her interest in journalism as a career, saying “When I learned what journalists did – essentially, go out and ask lots of nosy questions , meet people you’d never meet otherwise, and then get to write about it – I was hooked.”
After attending boarding school in New Hampshire, where she was on the staff of her school newspaper, she enrolled at Yale University. At college, she became an editor of the Yale Daily News. Once she had decided that journalism was the career for her, she did not let anything stand in her way. In pursuing her goal, she says she “moved to Washington, got a clerical job at the Times, wrote stories in my spare time, and wouldn’t leave until they made me a reporter.”
Today, Ms. Lyall covers stories focusing on politics, culture, and features that reveal details about life in both Britain and Scandinavia, the territories she specializes in. “I like funny stories the best,” she says, “stories that you can write in a humorous, unexpected way, but that reveal bigger truths about British society. ”
Last May, Ms. Lyall wrote a piece for the New York Times which grabbed a spot on their list of most popular stories viewed through the online edition of the paper. The story concerned the abolition of the one-word exam for admission to a fellowship of All Souls College (a story covered in Cherwell by the author of this piece, coincidentally!) When asked how she came to write about the event, she explained that “Americans are fascinated by stories about the — to us — arcane traditions at Oxford and Cambridge, and especially fascinated by the rituals surrounding the admissions process.”
When asked to give advice to aspiring journalists, Ms. Lyall begins by acknowledging the changes occurring in the media world, saying that “things are changing so quickly, that it’s hard to give advice based on my own experience.” However, she goes on to outline qualities important no matter what form the words of a reporter are published in, saying “that to be a good journalist you have to be an avid reader with an avid curiosity and an endless capacity to be interested in the world around you. You should not be afraid to ask stupid questions in order to get things right. You shouldn’t believe anything you hear unless you’ve checked it out. And you should remember to put your ego aside – the story is always more important than the reporter. ”