• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Advertising
  • Join PGM
Pepperdine Graphic

Pepperdine Graphic

  • News
    • Good News
  • Sports
    • Hot Shots
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
    • Advice Column
    • Waves Comic
  • GNews
    • Staff Spotlights
    • First and Foremost
    • Allgood Food
    • Pepp in Your Step
    • DunnCensored
    • Beyond the Statistics
  • Special Publications
    • 5 Years In
    • L.A. County Fires
    • Change in Sports
    • Solutions Journalism: Climate Anxiety
    • Common Threads
    • Art Edition
    • Peace Through Music
    • Climate Change
    • Everybody Has One
    • If It Bleeds
    • By the Numbers
    • LGBTQ+ Edition: We Are All Human
    • Where We Stand: One Year Later
    • In the Midst of Tragedy
  • Currents
    • Currents Spring 2025
    • Currents Fall 2024
    • Currents Spring 2024
    • Currents Winter 2024
    • Currents Spring 2023
    • Currents Fall 2022
    • Spring 2022: Moments
    • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
    • Spring 2021: Beauty From Ashes
    • Fall 2020: Humans of Pepperdine
    • Spring 2020: Everyday Feminism
    • Fall 2019: Challenging Perceptions of Light & Dark
  • Podcasts
    • On the Other Hand
    • RE: Connect
    • Small Studio Sessions
    • SportsWaves
    • The Graph
    • The Melanated Muckraker
  • Print Editions
  • NewsWaves
  • Sponsored Content
  • Digital Deliveries
  • DPS Crime Logs

Good News: Finding Light in Journalism

April 10, 2024 by Abby Wilt

Executive Editor Abby Wilt sits in her office in the PGM newsroom April 9. She has found good news in her work as a student journalist. Photo by Mary Elisabeth
Executive Editor Abby Wilt sits in her office in the PGM newsroom April 9. She has found good news in her work as a student journalist. Photo by Mary Elisabeth

Over the course of my time as a student at Pepperdine, I have written a good news once a semester. They’ve ranged from how I rediscovered my love for art to why I love the chairs on main campus.

But, when I think about it, the best news I can find in college, I find in journalism.

I’ve loved telling stories since I was little, but I didn’t realize until college that this could be my career. Journalism is an art, a job and my biggest passion — and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

I find good news in the people I meet through this job.

I have been able to interview students with passions I would never know about otherwise and see them light up when they start talking about how they came to Pepperdine and their dreams for the future.

I hear administrators talk about how they are working to make our school better in every way they can. I take bits and pieces of wisdom from those interviews and tuck them away in my Notes app to return to when I need some inspiration. Tim Spivey and Connie Horton — quotes from you two will keep me going for another decade.

I meet professors and get to ask them why they love what they do — and it’s always because they love their students so deeply. These interviews show me why I love this community so much.

I have found some of my closest friends and biggest mentors have through interviews too.

A hard interview with Sharon Beard led to her becoming one of my biggest mentors and someone I have gained so much wisdom from. A funny interview with senior Ginger Jacobs led me to ask her to be my sophomore-year roommate. An informational interview with alumna Katie Price (’22) led to a sweet friendship I will always cherish.

When I hear I get to spend the day in the newsroom, that’s good news to me. I am going to miss taking a nap on our couch, hunkering down in my office with my sappy music playing and forcing my dog, Daisy, to be our Graphic and NewsWaves mascot.

I see good news in our staff — from the student journalists who came before me and taught me everything I know — to now, people asking me all the questions that I still don’t feel qualified enough to answer. I wouldn’t know how to write a broadcast script if it wasn’t for Brianna Willis, and I wouldn’t have quite as much fun in the newsroom if it wasn’t for Nina Fife. These people bring me good news.

My advisers bring me good news too, and I wouldn’t love journalism as much as I do if it wasn’t for them. Elizabeth Smith shows me grace and how to lead with faith. She has sat with me through every high and low in the newsroom, and I look up to her in more ways than I can write.

Theresa de los Santos pushes me to be the best I can while loving me every step of the way. Christina Littlefield shows me how to combine my two passions — faith and the news — and Courtenay Stallings shows me how to be intentional and thoughtful and always knows just what I need.

From watching a show develop from a simple idea to an hour-long special broadcast outside of the studio to watching a blank page develop into a newspaper that I can read while drinking my morning coffee, I find good news in the production of the news too.

As I start my career as a professional journalist, I know I’ll keep finding more good news. As I bounce around now from news market to news market, I find hope in the fact that I get to learn from new communities and hopefully tell stories that will make an impact and a difference in our world.

_________________________________

Follow the Graphic on X: @PeppGraphic

Contact Abby Wilt via X: @abby_wilt or by email: abby.wilt@pepperdine.edu

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Abby Wilt, Broadcasting, Christina Littlefield, Connie Horton, Courtenay Stallings, Daisy, Elizabeth Smith, Ginger Jacobs, journalism, journalist, Katie Price, mentorship, NewsWaves, Nina Fife, PGM gnews, Sharon Beard, Theresa de Los Santos, Tim Spivey

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Featured
  • News
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
  • Sports
  • Podcasts
  • G News
  • COVID-19
  • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
  • Everybody Has One
  • Newsletters

Footer

Pepperdine Graphic Media
Copyright © 2025 ยท Pepperdine Graphic

Contact Us

Advertising
(310) 506-4318
peppgraphicadvertising@gmail.com

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
(310) 506-4311
peppgraphicmedia@gmail.com
Student Publications
Pepperdine University
24255 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu, CA 90263
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube