Editor’s Note

By Brooke Manuel, Skyline Editor

After months of investigation and research, multiple interviews and weeks of preparation, I looked out across a room full of people staring back at me, waiting to hear what I had to say. All of the chairs in the room were filled by my peers and advisors from across the nation. Alongside names such as Alexis Scott, whose grandfather founded the nation’s first black-owned daily newspaper, the Atlanta Daily World, and Charles M. Blow, reporter, commentator and op-ed columnist for The New York Times, was Brooke Manuel, a 26-year-old student journalist from a town of less than 20,000 people chasing her dream.