On this episode, Mark Simon speaks to Marcela García, associate editor and columnist for the op-ed page at The Boston Globe.

Marcela often writes about Latinx communities in Boston including in a newsletter she launched, ¡Mira!, that is written in English and Spanish. She also writes some of the Globe's unsigned editorials.

For that, she and two of her colleagues were finalists for this year's Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing. As the Pulitzer board noted "For their politically courageous and deeply reported editorials on how Boston can humanely and effectively close underutilized schools in ways that improve student learning."

We talked to Marcela about the series, the work that goes into reporting and writing, and her advice for students with aspirations of writing op-eds and editorials. If you like the former podcast, Longform, I think you'll enjoy this episode.

Link to the Pulitzer series: https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/22653

Marcela's salutes: New Bedford Light and Texas Tribune

Thank you for listening. You can e-mail me at journalismsalute@gmail.com

Visit our website: thejournalismsalute.org

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On The Journalism Salute we interview journalists about who they are and what they do with the intent of showing that journalists are not the enemy. Today we're joined by Alan Tai. Alan just won the Journalism Education Association's Student Journalist of the Year award as a senior at Monta Vista High School in California.

Alan talked about his experiences on the student newspaper, El Estoque as an editor-in-chief and also as a writer of features and op-eds. He explained what the school's journalism program is like and how it successfully deals with school administration. He also shared lessons he learned and offered tips to guide future editors-in-chief.

This is the 4th straight year we've interviewed the national winner of that award, the first of them was Anushka De, also from Monta Vista High School.

Alan's salutes: The Journalism Education Association, Student Press Law Center, Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and The News Literacy Project.

Story examples:

Feature on local residents who were military veterans

https://elestoque.org/2022/11/11/features/american-heroes/

Cheat GPT: Is It Time To Kill The Essay?

https://elestoque.org/2023/03/21/opinion/cheatgpt-is-it-time-to-kill-the-essay/

Thank you for listening. You can e-mail me at journalismsalute@gmail.com

Visit our website: thejournalismsalute.org

Mark’s website (MarkSimonmedia.com)

Tweet us at @journalismpod and Bluesky at @marksimon.bsky.social

Subscribe to our newsletter– journalismsalute.substack.com

On this episode we're joined by Alexandra Lange. She is a journalist, design critic, author and teacher. She was recently named the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner in criticism for a series of pieces at Bloomberg CityLab about designing cities for families. The judges wrote:

For graceful and genre-expanding writing about public spaces for families, deftly using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive.

Her portfolio encompassed 7 pieces in all, spaced out from March to December of 2024. You can find the stories here:

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/22649

Alexandra shared her approach to writing these stories, providing multiple examples of the choices she made at different points along the way. She also spoke about the evolution of architectural criticism and how her writing is similar to that which you would see in op-ed pieces written at the high school, college, or professional level.

Alexandra's salutes: Critical Minded and also journalism unions

Thank you for listening. You can e-mail me at journalismsalute@gmail.com

Visit our website: thejournalismsalute.org

Mark’s website (MarkSimonmedia.com)

Tweet us at @journalismpod and Bluesky at @marksimon.bsky.social

Subscribe to our newsletter– journalismsalute.substack.com