Student builds byline with big story
MIDLAND, Beaver County — The pinnacle of a writer's career is the Great American Novel.
And while there's no official equivalent, the pinnacle of a journalist's career is the Great Scoop.
Writers and journalists aim high. They're always on the lookout for that one story that will make their bylines household names. For most, it's a pipe dream.
That pipe dream is close for Trinity Lule, who is a senior writing and publishing student at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School. An interview she had with the national director of The Knights Party — an incorporated group of the Ku Klux Klan — made it so.
“The KKK is like a unicorn to me,” said Trinity. “I wanted to really put a face to what I was so afraid of for so many years.”
Inspiration calling
Trinity is from Butler and is the daughter of Tiffany Crotzer. She has four siblings — three brothers and a sister — and is in her second year at Lincoln Park.
She takes classes in the writing and publishing department and works on The Siren, a monthly student publication.
Trinity joined The Siren this year. She was a graphic designer until she joked about interviewing someone in the KKK. Her inspiration was Spike Lee's movie “BlacKkKlansman.”
It was Dan LeRoy, The Siren's adviser and Lincoln Park director of writing and publishing, who suggested she give a KKK interview serious consideration.
“I've always had this unspoken relationship with them, as a black person,” Trinity said.
Trinity got in touch with The Knights Party to schedule an interview. She didn't know until the last minute she'd be talking directly to Thomas Robb, the groups national director since 1989.
“We do interviews with students all the time,” Robb explained in an interview with The Butler Eagle on Friday. “We recognize that getting information in the hands of young people is very important.”
The result of the interview — Trinity's piece called “Blackkklanswoman?” — impressed Erin Brody, a Lincoln Park junior and managing editor of The Siren.
“I never read anything she wrote,” Brody said. “When I first read it, I was blown away.”
Inspiring ethics in educationThe publishing class learns journalism, including AP Style, journalistic ethics, story construction and famous libel cases.LeRoy chooses to teach young journalists by letting them learn as much as they can on their own.“It's their paper,” LeRoy said. “They're the ones who've got to figure this stuff out.”The Siren's staff is complex. Some students are returning students, which means they're familiar with journalistic practices. Others — like Trinity — are new. It's like working in a real newsroom, according to LeRoy.“You come in off the street and they throw you in the deep end and you have to figure it out,” LeRoy said.The goal is to raise reporters who are both ethical and good at their jobs. The world of journalism can be tough. There's a line between getting a good scoop and getting a good scoop properly.“You go out and get the really difficult stories,” Trinity said. “Because it yields the best rewards.”Real-world journalism is volatile and changing, and bears significant teachable moments, according to LeRoy. The spring of 2019 — between the Nick Sandmann and Jussie Smollett cases — was particularly educational.“Every day, the news was its own lesson plan,” LeRoy said.
Inspired by the challengeLeRoy has been part of Lincoln Park since it opened in 2006. He said The Siren has run potentially controversial stories before, such as pieces on Juuling.“(I) stay out of the way,” LeRoy said. “To let them do the stories that they want to do, that they think are important.”To Trinity, interviewing someone in the KKK was important because it was personal.“I wanted to see how I was perceived,” Trinity said. “But I also wanted to see how they would define themselves because they're undergoing this rebranding.”The Knights Party is a white nationalist movement, according to Robb. Although he declined to provide specific party numbers, he said The Knights Party is sticking to “traditional” platforms.“We just believe we as a people have a right to (celebrate) our heritage,” Robb said. “We have ... old ideas.”Trinity said Robb knew only part of her identity before their interview: He knew she was a student and she was interviewing him for a school publication.“He didn't know I was a person of color,” Trinity said. “I kind of wanted to go in there seeing if I could deceive him.”Robb told The Eagle that The Knights Party does interviews with all people — including students — even students of color.“We make ourselves accessible,” Robb said. “We don't care.”
<b>The interview</b>Asking hard questions is difficult, LeRoy said.“At any point, you can fold up your tent and go home,” LeRoy said. “Nobody's in the room with you. You can quit anytime you want.”Trinity conducted her interview by phone in a soundproofed room in Lincoln Park's Alumni Hall. She asked friends to join her for moral support.During the conference call, Trinity said it sounded like Robb was with other people.“I thought it was scary, actually,” Trinity said. “That lets me know he's not alone in this.”Trinity's approach to writing “Blackkklanswoman?” was different: Part memoir, part creative nonfiction, LeRoy believes the style she chose helps it stand apart.“It's a little bit unusual,” LeRoy said.The Siren typically doesn't publish stories written in the first person. But Trinity's was an exception.“It felt like a very personal piece,” Trinity said. “I had to take the approach of being more personal.”<b>Inspiring a young writer</b>LeRoy has a background in journalism that includes writing for the former Charleston Daily Mail in West Virginia, The New York Times and magazines such as Esquire and Rolling Stone.“I've been waiting for somebody to come and do something like this for a while,” LeRoy said.Sometimes, big stories for students didn't pan out because LeRoy would have had to do “too much hand-holding.” He said doing that doesn't fit in with his teaching style, and doesn't help students become journalists.LeRoy's teaching philosophy is something like this: If students own their work early on, they're more likely to own it later.“And own it in a bigger way,” LeRoy said, “which I suppose is what happened here.”LeRoy believes Trinity's story has been successful because she decided to pursue it herself. While LeRoy suggested she give a KKK interview serious thought, Trinity was responsible for carrying it out.“The best way that it happens is the way it happened this time,” LeRoy said. “I made a suggestion. She followed up the suggestion.”Preparing for the story took time on Trinity's part. She researched The Knights Party. She developed the “right” questions.“I didn't want to ask anything too abrasive,” Trinity said. “I wanted to kind of almost seem like I was standing from a place of no judgment at all.”Trinity said she has about 45 minutes of audio recording from the interview that helped her prepare her story.Trinity was honest about what made her uncomfortable, LeRoy said.“But she didn't back down,” LeRoy said. “She has the makings of a good reporter.”<b>Uninspiring comments</b>Most of the feedback Trinity got for her story has been positive, she said.Although not everyone in her family liked the project at first, Trinity said they're now proud of her. Students and teachers have also congratulated her.A few anonymous readers voiced criticism of her work. They can be found in the comment section in the online version of a story written on Trinity by a Pittsburgh newspaper.Those comments come with the territory.“It's expected,” Trinity said. “It didn't really bother me.”A substantive criticism is different from general negativity. LeRoy knows negative feedback is part of any article that's open to public comment. Some negativity comes from personal vendettas. Some comes from misinformation.“It's still going to happen,” LeRoy said. “You got to be ready for it.”The one group that hasn't issued a response: The Knights Party. Robb said he hasn't read Trinity's story yet. No representative has contacted her.“Do I expect it to happen?” LeRoy said. “I don't know.”If it happens — and if the KKK takes a defensive stance — LeRoy said he knows Lincoln Park will support Trinity.Lincoln Park writing and publishing students must learn to be independent, LeRoy said. As writers, they need to be able to handle rejection and adversity.But if it comes down to protecting Trinity for the work she's done, LeRoy's role is clear.“It is my job to step in and be the firewall,” LeRoy said, “which I'll certainly be very happy to do.”<b>Last paragraph</b>For the small percentage of Americans who write the Great American Novel, there's a catch: What happens after you type “The End”?“Maybe the thing that's hardest to hear after you do something like this is, 'That's great. That was yesterday. What do you got for me today?'” LeRoy said. “She's trying to think about that.”But Trinity hasn't had to think too long. Her next big assignment: She wants to interview former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang.“I was kind of using this article as, 'Hey, I'm serious about journalism,'” Trinity said.Trinity said she'd also interview people in The Knights Party again.Writing a second Great Article — or chasing that next “unicorn” — is just as important as writing a first.“Maybe more than anything else, that's what makes a good reporter,” LeRoy said.There are things Trinity would do differently if she did the story again.For one thing, she'd put more distance between herself and her source: She called The Knights Party from her personal cell phone in her own house.As a journalist, Trinity said she'd have joined the KKK if given the chance. In “Blackkklanswoman?” Trinity wrote that Robb told her she couldn't.“I would have 100 percent been on board,” Trinity said.As a human, she said she wouldn't. Part of her reason is why she wrote “Blackkklanswoman?”“We're all the same,” Trinity said. “And I hope it changed at least ... some of (Robb's) perception of black people.”“We don't promote hatred,” Robb said. “Just focus on being a better person yourself.”Lasting pieces of literature become “classics.” Lasting pieces of journalism become “curriculum.” At Lincoln Park, “Blackkklanswoman?” is being incorporated into LeRoy's classes.“This becomes part of the curriculum,” LeRoy said. “And it's a part that a lot of people … are going to have lived through.”Erin wants to take The Siren in a more serious direction. She said Trinity's work has kicked things off.“Many people were interested in what we're doing,” Erin said. “I think it's … a good start.”
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