by Serina Zheng
photos by Echo Luo
Two education reporters covering violence in Philadelphia schools said interviewing a girl assaulted by a gang of students in school was challenging.
“It is difficult,” Kristen Graham, who won a Pulitzer for her work with colleague Susan Snyder, said. “As a journalist, your job is to be objective and to be professional and write stories in an objective way. It’s hard.”
Kristen Graham says she started her journalism career covering a back yard fire when she was 6.
A reporter faces a lot of challenges in beat reporting, Graham and Snyder said to an audience of nearly 60 students at Hong Kong Baptist University today.
“Because there are so many different types of stories I write about. The biggest challenge for me is to make sure I get to the important stories that really could be done,” said Snyder, who works on the higher education beat at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Graham and Snyder’s series, “Assault on Learning”, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.
“I can’t believe that I have the opportunity to contact with the Pulitzer Prize Winners so closely, “ said Gloria Gu, a communication student said. “They look like ordinary people, but they did something unusual. And I feel that it is a very cool to report other people’s stories and to stand up for those people who are in a weak position.”