Starting my freshman year of high school, I started viscerally following the news. Before, I had casually read headlines from my local paper or watched the nightly news with my parents occasionally.
This change was spurred on by my high school journalism teacher Mrs. Ullery who would quiz us on the week’s global, national, and local news headlines every Friday. These quizzes often caused my classmates to panic but I never really worried because I followed things so closely.
The outlet that has always been consistent in reporting and has always been helpful for me is the Associated Press—specifically their app because of how quickly and accurately they reported the news.
I love AP because there is such diverse coverage—from college football to global health— AP never fails to be a source I can trust.
Besides AP, the local news source from home I trust is channel 9 news. Channel 9 was one of the news broadcasts I would watch when I was little and was always accurate and timely with the news.
In fact, channel 9 was the first channel to accurately predict the trajectory of a tornado that almost hit my neighborhood effectively saving lives, including my own. I’ve trusted them for the weather as well as personal, local stories especially when they covered the death of one of my friends with care and civility.
When my friend Keagan died in a car accident this summer, Channel 9 focused less on the actual accident and more on the people he impacted, which really helped in the healing process for me. I can always go back and look at the interviews that channel 9 did with my friends right after his death whenever I am feeling especially distraught.
It is so important for people to trust their local news services. Without trusted local news, It’s hard for communities to come together and be uplifted through the human-interest stories that local sources often do.
I am so glad that I have sources like AP and Channel 9 that I always know I can go to whenever I need to get good reporting and the right facts.
