Mentored with Christian Integrity: Wednesday May 22, 2024

By Natalie Conrad from Wheaton College

To start the afternoon, we had a lecture with Les Sillars from Patrick Henry College. He walked us through the structure of feature writing, from the lede to the nut graf to the body and conclusion. For the rest of that session, we practiced identifying the parts of a feature story in a WORLD article, “Ambassadors in Chains” Les is an amazing teacher, and I’ve enjoyed every session we have with him, whether it’s learning how to be biblically objective or how to write a good lede.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon working on our video broadcast projects. After spending time editing our scripts this morning, we continued edits, and some people began filming our stand-ups on camera.

I have no experience in broadcast journalism, and the idea of writing a good news script was daunting. But the journalists, producers, and broadcasters who edited our scripts all morning and afternoon made the process so much more approachable.

My time at WJI has been full of embracing new challenges and jumping into new journalistic experiences with courage. The journalists and professors at WJI have made the session so worthwhile and valuable. I’ve especially appreciated the Christian perspective and grace with which the instructors have mentored us.