For my first year on the Torch staff this year, I covered a ton and of all sorts. Here are my ten personal best stories that hold a special place in my heart.
10. What is the Hype Around Squid Game?: I remember writing this story right after watching the series and getting excited when I saw it printed out. It holds a special place in my heart being the first story of mine that I got to see on paper. Decent length at 6 minutes. I think it’s pretty well written and answers the question decently, it was a pretty good story.
9. A Man Named Scott: A Review: As a big Kid Cudi fan, when his documentary came out I jumped at the opportunity to review it. I really enjoyed writing it and I think my passion shined through. The story is also 6 minutes long, I really like this story and think I reviewed it well.
8. Labor Unions Fighting Through The Pandemic: I always like writing stories that are more personal and shine a light on Wichita topics. I interviewed my dad for this story and wrote a pretty cool informational piece in my opinion. Shining a light on my dad and a local workers union was fun and I like the story a lot.
7. Kanye Beef With Pete Davidson: The first KanYe story to make it on the list. I like writing about KanYe and this was a funny topic. Used a funny featured image too. KanYe story so an instant 10/10.
6. Wichita Students Stand Against Dress Code: I enjoy interviewing people and I got to do that with this story. The dress code protest at East High School was a cool story to cover and I liked being the one who covered it. It was a beat but it was 4 minutes long and I think it was done well. Good story.
5. Must See Upcoming 2021 Movies: This story definitely holds a near and dear place in my heart. This story was the basis of all my list style stories and without it this story and many more wouldn’t be the same. There were also some good movies on there and some pretty disappointing ones. I actually saw a good amount of the movies and a lot of them weren’t very good! But the story was good and it gets a thumbs up from me.
4. New Mitski, New Me: This was my best review this year, and I am very proud of this review. The Mitski album disappointed me and I didn’t hide that fact from the audience. I was truthful over what I enjoyed and blunt with what I didn’t. I gave accurate information surrounding the release, and in my opinion a well thought out and reasoned review. As a big Mitski fan I was reluctant to be negative when it came down to reviewing this album but I was true to how I felt and I like this review very much. The title is also very good.
3. Factory Farming; Abuse, Effects on the Environment, Disease: This story took forever to write, but I think it was worth it. I spent a couple weeks writing this story and it sits at 8 minutes in length. This is my longest story and obviously one of my favorites. I remember conceiving the idea of an expose on the factory farming world and knew I had to write it eventually. There are slight changed I would make to the formatting of this story but overall it took a lot out of me to write it and it was definitely energy and time well spent. I also love cows. Good story.
2. Kanye West and the Story of DONDA: It’s my first big story and the one I peaked at. Couldn’t do anything better than this album and it shows through the rest of this list. KanYe story so it’s a 10/10. Also long for my first big story at 6 minutes. I gave a good history around the album and summarized it up well. Good story.
HM. Celebrity Bored Apes Rated: Honorable Mention to the Bored Ape story, I wrote it for fun. I like how it turned out and it was fun to write. I got to talk about how Eminem spent 500,000 dollars. It was pretty fun and pretty entertaining.
HM. Ethnic Alternatives For Your Thanksgiving Dinner: I wanted to mention this story even though I don’t like it very much. I liked the idea of it, but it didn’t turn out very good. I don’t think it was written very well, and I ran out of ideas really fast.
1. Murderous Hot Dogs: My first and best story to be honest. Hot dogs kill you. Good story.
Wrapping up a great year, with some good memories.
Also, shoutout to my amazing editor, Ali Nguyen, who is awesome.
