Beneath the Byline: An interview with Grace Mackey

A conversation with Grace Mackey, our Editorial Assistant, who also happens to be launching a new feature for us.

You’re our editorial assistant, but can you share a little more about your biography? Who are you, where are you from, etc?

I grew up in upstate New York, in a small town outside of Albany called Averill Park. My parents moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina, after I graduated from high school, and I guess I was craving something entirely different from NY, because I chose Palm Beach Atlantic University for school (in Florida). I’m now in Brooklyn, New York, embracing my northern roots (although I cannot emphasize how different my hometown is from Brooklyn). 

A lot of my childhood was shaped by camp. My parents run a camp with a location in upstate NY and more recently, North Carolina, and I spent my summers in the Adirondacks for my entire childhood. I was in the woods all the time. I loved it and I still do. I would say I am an outdoors person all around. I love traveling, but I have my limits. After a while, I crave familiarity. 

I guess I would describe myself as adventurous, but also deeply nostalgic. Nostalgia puts limits on my adventure. I must go back to the people and places I love, and revisit the past as much as I can. I actually think my love for writing formed because of this. I started writing a lot in high school, typically journaling (although when I was younger I started writing a book that probably closely resembled the Percy Jackson series a little too much). 

I studied English with a journalism minor at PBA, largely because I just loved to read and write. It’s how I felt I learned about people and the world best. I think that will always be true.

And you have an interest in journalism, what did that look like in college? What did you do with journalism in college?

The bulk of my journalism education in college was shaped by my involvement with the school paper, The Beacon Today. You can only learn so much in the classroom when it comes to journalism. You just gotta do it, and the school paper gave me a nice starting point for that. I started out as a reporter, then an Assistant Editor, and finally the EIC during my final semester. It was a blast, but also really difficult at times. My editing skills were strengthened, as was expected, but maybe even more than that, I learned how to communicate with a team well. I loved working with younger students, and helping them learn how to hunt down a story and tell it as well as they could. I sensed a lot of hesitation in underclassmen towards certain topics and stories, and I loved telling them, “Not only are you allowed to write about this tricky topic, you should.” I stepped into the role at a time when our paper was really struggling, and found it incredibly difficult to work with school administration at times. It felt like certain leaders failed to advocate for the university’s journalism program effectively, and that got really frustrating, because, for me, involvement with the school paper was where I learned most of my skills. University publications can get tricky because they often conflict with good PR, but I am very passionate about their place at universities, not as a place to vent about campus, but a place to reach students with information they deserve to know and ought to think about. At the end of my final semester, one of my journalism professors emphasized how important my persistence could be to a journalism career, so at the very least, all the frustrating moments taught me that. 

There are definitely a few projects that stand out to me the most from college. During my sophomore year, the Beacon EIC at the time asked if I would co-host an informational podcast about the Middle East with her (she had just been on a  trip to Jordan and a few other countries), and I said yes. About three weeks later, Hamas attacked Israel, so we had to completely pivot our focus. We ended up interviewing three people with a range of views on the conflict. I learned so much about the issue, interviewing, and podcasting. My favorite print story was about a “traveling evangelist” that visited a local church in West Palm Beach and performed miracles at the end of every sermon. I questioned a lot about his teaching, and wrote a story about him, but also how to approach spiritual revival more broadly. That was one of my favorite stories because I was able to immerse myself in the actual event, and write about it in a context of a broader cultural movement.  

Right after graduating, I attended the World Journalism Institute with WORLD magazine, and it strengthened my skills in a lot of ways, especially in feature writing, broadcasting, and podcasting. We also discussed media culture quite a bit, so I was able to really ask myself if it’s an industry I admire and would want to be a part of. Obviously it’s a deeply divided space, but with that comes a greater need for good journalists of integrity. 

Now you’re about to launch a series of interviews with journalists for the website, what are you going to call it?

I think I will call it, “Beneath the Byline.” 

What is it about journalism that interests you?

I really do believe that we live through narratives and stories, and journalism seems to embrace that, and even find those narratives that easily remain hidden. It’s cliche, but it has the power to hold powerful people accountable. It also forces you to pay very close attention to the people and places around you. You have to ask good questions, you have to be a good listener, you have to observe your community (locally, nationally, and globally), and you have to think critically about events taking place right before your eyes. The best journalism asks you to be present and humble.  One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes, “there are no ordinary people.” Journalism really embodies that for me. Ideally, a journalist looks at each person as if their story matters, and listens to them that way. I’m drawn to that.

More practically, I find it to be a satisfying form of writing. I enjoy writing fiction, but I love observing people and events in real time, and trying to bring other people there. I’ve also done a lot of academic writing, and while that absolutely developed my critical thinking skills, I wrestled with the question, “Who is this for?” Writing is valuable even when it’s not read, but I’m drawn to the technique involved in writing for a specific audience about a specific event. I like how concise you have to be with most stories because it’s made me a much better writer. It’s also so much more than writing. It’s research, interviews, travel, and all of these things that help you actually understand what you’re writing about. I really enjoy all of that as well. The whole process forces you to dive deep into a certain topic. The media is also always changing so much, I find it hard to look away. I’m very curious to see how it keeps changing, and I think it’s important for people who value writing and truth to be in the industry.

What do you hope to achieve with this series of interviews?

For myself and our readers, I hope this series expands our understanding of how writing and stories impact the world. There’s so much variety within journalism, but I think storytelling is central to the craft. I think this series adds important diversity to Orange Blossom Ordinary by highlighting professional writers or storytellers of a different breed. Also, books and journalism very obviously intersect, and how journalists understand people and the world, and therefore tell their own stories, is so often impacted by authors. And many of them become book authors themselves. I hope this series will add depth to Orange Blossom’s commitment to books and ideas. 

Do you have any favorite journalists?

Yes, although I feel like I discover someone new everyday, so a lot of these journalists I’m still getting to know. Among the more historically significant, I’ve just recently been reading Joan Didion, John McPhee (thanks for the recommendation), and Tom Wolfe, but I have a lot more work to do with them. I think there are a few great opinion writers at the New York Times, but my current favorite is Ross Douthat, particularly on his podcast Interesting Times. I also like David Brooks because his topics usually interest me.

Any favorite publications?

I probably read the New York Times, The Free Press, and The Atlantic most consistently, but I’m always jumping around. I try to read some Christian publications, like WORLD and Christianity Today. WORLD has an especially good daily news podcast. It’s not a specific publication, but Substack helps me keep a nice variety in what I read, and I’m also discovering new publications through them. I definitely try to avoid reading the same ones exclusively, though the ones above are often my go-to. 

What are your thoughts on how words shape our view of the world?

We talked about this a lot in one of my classes this past semester (shoutout to Dr. Rodewald). It’s hard to overstate their role in worldview. The words different cultures or society use says a lot about their worldview, but that’s a rabbit hole I’m not going to go down right now. I think words do the best job capturing people, so they also do the best job taking us to places we’ve never been before. If I grew up only knowing what was directly outside my door, my worldview would be incredibly different. Obviously that wasn’t the case, largely because of the media. But words, especially in the form of books and journalism, were the original way for people to go elsewhere, and expand their understanding of the world. I think they also offer people a deeper understanding of themselves and others, more than anything else can. One more though: a lot of the best writers are precise with their language. I think part of the reason is that they know how much influence one word, the right word, can have. 

How important are books and words to you?

Very important. I studied English for a reason. I learned pretty quickly in studying English that we really live within narratives, and that’s why stories mean so much to us. People really want to find meaning in the world around them, and constructing a narrative is doing exactly that. How a person, place, or a scenario is described carries so much depth and influence, and what you read can really shape your entire perception of any given event or time.

I know I need fiction in my life. I can’t tell you how many times a fiction novel has taken me somewhere else when I most needed it, and helped me understand the world much better. For me, words do the best job capturing people and their worlds. They are where I experience the most greatest creativity, and where many of my heroes do as well. I also need nonfiction. I am in awe of how some nonfiction writers and journalists can take people, events, or parts of daily life that seem so ordinary, or so understood, and dig deeper, and ask great questions.

We know that journalists have a responsibility to the truth and owe something to their audience, what about other writers? Do they have any responsibilities or obligations to truth or to readers?

Yes, but not in the same way. Journalists are meant to offer objectivity, facts of an event that we can all agree upon, to the best of their ability. Nobody is under the impression that journalists can write without any bias, but it’s fair to expect journalists to do this to the best of their ability, and make any viewpoint they are writing from known to their audience. I guess  I put nonfiction writers in the same boat. Fiction authors, however, absolutely still have an obligation to the truth. I honestly believe every writer does. But they access the truth in a different, equally important way. It is not by recording the events happening around us, but I think they unveil parts of reality by taking their reader somewhere else. Tolkien was a huge proponent of how good it is for people to escape into other lands and come back to their own world with a clearer vision of reality. So I guess I would say fiction authors have an obligation to leave their readers with clear, not muddy, vision with their stories. They should be writing in an effort to reveal the truth. This is not to say the best fiction is didactic (that’s the worst fiction most of the time), but their stories should reveal the truth about the world and humans in a way that only fiction can do. 

If you had to convince someone to read more journalism, what would you say?

I think a lot of people get overwhelmed with journalism because there’s just SO much to read nowadays. I totally relate to the paralysis. But it’s worth overcoming, because with all of the options, there’s an opportunity to learn so much about the world and what you’re interested in. So to those people, I would say to seek out journalism in areas you’re interested in, because I guarantee it’s out there. It’s fairly easy to follow major events; they’re almost unavoidable. And it’s important to follow them. But to get someone to really go deeper, I would also tell them that because there’s so much out there, there are a good amount of writers going much deeper with certain ideas and topics. There’s almost always an opportunity to hear more about something you’re already interested in, or grow interested in something new. If they are people who like to read books and write, I would also say that many of the best authors started out as journalists, and reading journalism can develop your writing quite a bit. 

Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you were hoping would come up or that you would like to share?

I guess I’ve thought a lot about humility and journalism recently. There are absolutely strong figures in journalism currently and historically, and I’m grateful to have heroes. But a journalism professor I recently spoke with said great journalists are focused on the story and not their own name and reputation, and I think that’s very true however rare it actually is in the industry. 

It also feels nearly impossible to talk about modern media without polarization coming up, especially political polarization. There are way more niche media outlets today than years ago, and many publications don’t claim total objectivity the way they did before. I actually respect when publications are transparent about the worldview they write from, but I also hope journalists don’t give up on the idea of objectivity entirely. This might be naive, but I hope journalism can play a role in bridging the gap between polarized groups. More practically, I think journalists should do everything they can to understand people they disagree with and write about them fairly.