25-Year-Old NYU Journalism Student: What's an Editorial?

25-Year-Old NYU Journalism Student: What's an Editorial?

Racially-obsessed Daisy Hernández published an 8,000-word excerpt of her racially-obsessed memoir in the racially-obsessed Salon. In the excerpt, Hernández admits that at age 25, while taking graduate-level journalism classes at no less than New York University, she had absolutely no idea what a newspaper editorial was.

The except — which uses the word “white” 77 times — opens with Hernández, admitting she “didn’t think white people got jobs the way Latinos did, just by talking to each other[.]” Regardless, this is how her “white woman” journalism professor was able to land Hernández a job researching a book for a New York Times editorial writer. This eventually led to Hernández applying for an internship in the Times‘ editorial department (which is filled with “regular white people”).

Incredibly, despite the fact that she had no idea what an editorial was, Hernández got the job:

Oye, and just like that I send my resume, which now includes research on indigenous maxi pads, to the editor at the Times hiring interns, even though I have no idea what an editorial is. That’s right. I am twenty-five, I am writing for a national magazine, I have been in journalism school, and I do not know what an editorial is.

I want to say that it’s never come up, that no one has ever talked to me about editorials. But they probably did, and I didn’t know what it was, and as I’ve been doing since I was in kindergarten, I probably acted like I knew what they were talking about and promptly forgot it.

How any American can make it to age 25 without knowing what an newspaper editorial is, is shocking enough. In the case of Hernández, journalism was her chosen profession, and she was taking graduate-level classes on the subject at one of the world’s elite journalism schools.

Maybe if Hernández had been less obsessed with her identity and the color of everyone else’s skin she would have learned the bare bones basics of her chosen profession.

Making it to age 25 as a journalism student without knowing what an editorial is, is like making it to age 25 at burger school without knowing what a Big Mac is.

Hernández’ breathtaking ignorance says as much about NYU and the New York Times as it does her.

A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir is in bookstores and written in snowflakes.

John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.