A new sense of community

In many ethnic environments, a sense of community and family is a central part of the culture. We’re tight-knit and taught to value our homelands, our hometowns. When you decide to pursue journalism, you are encouraged to leave home to look for work. But it’s hard to leave a community that helped shape and prepare you for the real world. These conflicting pressures have plagued me throughout my love affair with this vocation. But after hearing the emphasis on family and community at Thursday’s dinner, I better understand that journalists can be like family and a home can be found in a newsroom.

We work in a field that demands consistent, high-quality, reputable production. Newsroom environments can be crazy, fast-paced and impersonal. But we also are charged with a responsibility to care beyond our stories and subjects by watching out and supporting one another in the common goal of serving our respective communities.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta, St. Mary’s University, Austin (Texas) American-Statesman