Welcome everyone to coffee with Cojo and your host, Dimitri Gilkey. And I am a graduate student here at SDSU, and I am in the Masters of Mass Communication Program and super excited to interview our guest. Her name is Jordan and I'm not going to mess her name up. She can say that here in a second when she introduces herself, but she is so accomplished and I am so honored to interview her.
So with that being said, Jordan, thank you for coming and or virtually agreeing to do this interview with us. So, Jordan, if you would, tell us, how do you pronounce your last name? And then if you will tell us about yourself, where you're originally from and what program you're in here at SDSU? Yeah, for sure. And you would not be the first person to mispronounce my last name. So. So really used to that.
My name is Jordan Rusche. I am a journalism major with Cojo here at SDSU Senior and I am from De Smet, South Dakota. So that is about an hour, 45 minutes east excuse me, west of Brookings. And how did you hear about SDSU? So, I mean, being that close to Brookings, I was always pretty aware of SDSU. You know, a lot of people from my town kind of ended up going there just because it wasn't that far of a trip. And my dad actually worked for SDSU and he was working there.
By the time that I was old enough to start thinking about where I wanted to go to college. And also he is an alum as well. So it was always something that I was just very aware of and I wanted to stay in-state and I kind of at the time I didn't really want to go that far from home, and SDSU was just kind of the natural choice. So I applied and I got in and here we are. Sounds like you guys are all keeping it in the family. Well, my dad and I are.
My mom was norther, and my brother is going to a Dakota State. So it's nice. Nice. It's awesome, though. So I am pursuing a bachelor's in journalism. I'm also a double major with a bachelor's in English, and I am a I have a minor in digital and social media. So you have your hands completely in writing and editing all, it seems like all the way through. Yup, pretty much, yeah. Tell us why you chose to pursue journalism.
Why journalism is is something that you've always wanted to do as a little girl. Is it someone on TV that you looked at that you're like, Ooh, I want to do what that person does? Or is it just something you just picked out and you're like, Yes, let's go for it. The little is a little bit of the of the last thing. So I didn't really want to be a journalist throughout most of high school. I wanted to be an author like great fiction books and things, but that doesn't pay the bills.
So I'll tell you, get started. So I was like, okay, well, I need something that could potentially, you know, I could still write, but something that was maybe a little bit more of a real job until I could do the thing I actually wanted to do. And we had job shadowing a lot in high school, and I had to pick something. So I was like, Well, I'm not going to find an author in the vicinity. You know, journalism is close enough. Sure. And so I did that.
And so that kind of became that. I started off majoring in English and then minoring in journalism. And I got involved in In The Collegian, which Inter will talk about in a bit. And yeah, and I did that and I still was, you know, like journalism was fun, but I still kind of wasn't super planning on that being my, my life goal. And then when I was a freshman, a couple of months after I joined The Collegian, we went to a journalism conference in Minneapolis.
And I listened to this panel of these two journalists from the Star-Tribune talking about how they had written a bunch of articles on how Minnesota laws were regarding like stations. And that series actually ended up getting the laws changed in Minnesota because they were able to do such a fine job on that. And I was like, you know, I think I want to be these people.
I want to do something that could have some real impact on policy or the world around me and write about things going on like that. And so I think the next week I went to my first year advisor. I was like, I'm double majoring. No English in journalism. Never mind. Yeah, that's awesome. So you found purpose in it? I did, yeah. And passion. So that's super exciting. So not only do you want to write. You have an interest in a passion.
And if you are going to be impacting individuals and you want to help with getting policies changed, which is change the world. So that's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, you know, not even on such a big scale as that because I think I mean, that's sort of I feel like every journal and almost every journalist kind of wants to be that person, to be like, yeah, investigative journalism and sticking it to the man and that kind of stuff.
But I think even like being able to be in a small community or, you know, like just writing about people and sharing their stories and just saying like, look, you're these people that you might not know about that are doing great things or, you know, here's this community and here's your neighbor doing these great things. And so I think just I like the idea of being able to amplify other people's voices and sort of somewhat put that kind of stuff into writing for them.
Because I know that I am a better writer than I think some people can be. And so I'd like to use that skill to, to benefit other people. Yeah. So you're like a voice for the for the voices that are marginalized or, you know, can't speak up for themselves. So I love that. Yeah, I try to be. I think of myself as a megaphone. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So let's kind of segue where you kind of brought it up. Let's first I learned that you had acted in a lot of things.
So talk to us about some of the things we're going to say, the Pulitzer for to talk to us about. It looks like The Collegian in 605 Journal like all of these things. Tell us about these things, how you got involved, what you love about which one is your favorite?
Just tell us about it, about these experiences. Well, I'll talk about The Collegian first, because that's kind of the past couple of years, especially being I'm the current coeditor in chief with my friend Gracie Terrell, and we're both graduating this semester. This is our last our last week with the paper actually right now. But I've been doing that for the last couple of years, and that's kind of been my child a little bit.
But that's been such a great opportunity getting to get some hands on experience of, you know, reporting and interviewing and putting together an actual print paper because those are becoming more and more rare with each day. And it's just given me such a great life experience of getting to see how that works before I sort of get out into the real world. So there's that. And I've been I've had a couple internships since I've been with Kojo.
I did a summer with six or five magazine in Sioux Falls, and that was a really great opportunity to kind of see how my experience with the region kind of differed from a magazine like that or lifestyles. The news of covering restaurants and and inns and people like attractions and things. And so that was just like a great summer of getting to kind of for the first time experience, like a professional publication.
And then from about four May until I'm still currently working there as an intern, I've been at South Dakota Public Broadcasting, which was interesting because I had never really done anything with radio before, and it wasn't something that I ever really saw myself doing. But I've really like found it very interesting being able to focus more on the audio side of journalism as opposed to just the writing side.
And yeah, that's been a really great experience and it's really great people who work there. And I'm very happy that they've gotten to sort of add that to my my repertoire, kind of. Yeah. So were you on air or were you writing for them to tell us more about that? Yeah. So I'm mostly writing what we kind of do.
The interns is will, you know, it's it's partially, you know, like website post stories on the website, you know, a little bit more like what I've done for The Collegian, but then also writing a script to read on the air. And sometimes it'll be you just write out a script that the host for whatever segment is going to be on will read.
And sometimes you actually record yourself reading it if you have a larger story like a feature and then, you know, getting quotes and things and audio bites from people and natural sound and things like that. Mm hmm. That's super fun. I have a passion and interest in podcasting and radio and all of that. So I always love meeting people that have worked in radio or all of that. So that's awesome and I love that your experience is very diverse, so it's not just all.
One place. You've really did a great job throughout your undergraduate journey, gaining multiple types of experiences to make you especially marketable when you go for a great position. But also, you know, you can have you have so many skills now under your belt, which is awesome. So good job with that. Thank you. Yeah. So I read something about the Pulitzer's status. So you're a Pulitzer fellow or something? Tell us about that. That sounds like super huge. Yeah. So I am.
Last year I was a 2022 Pulitzer, a Pulitzer Center campus consortium. You know, I never am quite sure if I'm saying I was a I was a fellow for that program where a bunch of people across the country, a lot of journalism journalists, I should say, not all of them were still in college. We all were given a grant of about $3,000 to go and cover and under-reported issue either at the state, national, even international level.
A lot of my fellow reporters went overseas and covered news in other countries. And so I applied for that and got that position. So it was throughout last summer, I spent a couple of weeks working on my article or my articles, which were about how South Dakota does not really do a good enough job of teaching indigenous history and culture in their schools,
especially kids in public schools. And so talking to people about why that was, what sort of efforts people had been putting forward to kind of try and prove that and what people were doing now with different programs like the Chetty Shackley Essential Understanding Standard, which is basically just a series of lesson plans for teachers to use on how to integrate indigenous history into their lessons,
and then also community based schools on reservations that are kind of teaching their students with that sort of background in their own heritage and kind of what difference that is making for those kinds of students. Wow. That's big time. It was a lot. Yeah, that's amazing. And so as far as becoming that, did you have to go through like an intense application process or were you appointed as a fellow?
Or how did that work? Um, you know, it wasn't really as intense as I think I was kind of expecting it to be. It was just one application, and I think it helped that there weren't too many people who applied for it. I think it was me. One other person for sure. And I don't know if anyone else applied. Yeah.
So that was that was a little bit nicer not having to compete quite as much with people though I, I do think more people should apply for it because it is a really great opportunity and it looks fantastic on a resume. Mm hmm. Speaking of career and resumé, putting all of these experiences together and your passion for wanting to make a change for people on a local level. Where do you see yourself career wise in the next five years?
You know, I, I don't really know yet. And I think that's kind of just in general because journalism is always changing. So I have no idea what is really going to be available to me in five years. I know that I want to be working at a newspaper or at some kind of news organization, maybe a magazine somewhere where I can be writing.
But I kind of I want to sort of explore, you know, like, do I want to end up somewhere like Minneapolis or Chicago and do like reporting for like, like the Star Tribune and like the Chicago Sun or something? Or do I want to maybe end up in a smaller community and report on something like that? And so I think. The next couple of years is just going to be me sort of trying out some different things, figuring out what I like most. Yeah. You're graduating here in a few weeks, correct?
Yes, I am. I'm down to my last regular week and then I got finals, and then I'm done. And I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, I'm going to ask you. Yeah. What your if you have any idea. But I'm sure you're going to have some amazing job offers with your star resumé. Yeah, I do. I do have a job lined up already heading up to North Dakota to work for a couple newspapers in Tioga and Crosby. So it's going to be it's going to be small community journalism.
So that'll be a good time to sort of try that out and see if that's something I want to do long term or not. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I know you're going to do well. And so we're pretty much wrapping up this interview. I feel like it's flown by lightning. You've been giving us so many great nuggets of wisdom, but I want to ask you this.
For students that are thinking of coming to SDSU or have just started their bachelor's program or maybe even masters students like myself, what advice would you give for these individuals who are considering this type of career in journalism? Like how can they best prepare so that when they graduate they will be marketable and, you know, set themselves up for success in a program such as this?
Yeah, for sure. I think honestly, it just like get involved in the different sort of like student media opportunities that you'll have like join the college and or like do reporting for the college and you don't even have to be on the staff. Just come down to I report meetings and pick a story and write, you know, 500 words and turn it in.
And that's still much better sort of real world experience than just sort of only ever writing for your classes, which, you know, Cojo has fantastic journalism classes and they are really great learning opportunities, but nothing is really going to compare to, you know, working for coffee with Cojo, working for The Collegian, doing Jay, helping with the Prairie Dog Show.
Literally anything where you're there and producing something and kind of creating a product that you can then share with whoever might be interested in hiring me the future, because that is going to send you much farther than just the things that you produce in your classes. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Absolutely. That is great. Great, great, great. So with that being said, we have pretty much arrived at our conclusion of this program.
I don't know if you're active on social media, but if you are and viewers would like to connect with you, what are your handles that you would like to share? Or is there any way that listeners can connect with you? Yeah, I guess I feel like most journalists are kind of out on Twitter these days, you know, even though it's sort of a a fire now.
But I am still there. I post occasionally it's just Jordan underscore reaches and yet that's that's kind of the only place that I do anything like journalists was so that's the place to find me. Awesome. Awesome. Well, do you have any last words that you would like to share before we conclude?
You know, just like I especially now that I'm graduating, you know, I really have appreciated everything that my advisor and my teachers and professors and everyone in Podio has done for me for the past couple of years. I don't think that I could, you know, I would have all of these, like, great or, you know, like accomplishments under my belt if it weren't for them giving me these opportunities and putting things in front of me,
being like, You should go do this. So I think a lot of the things that I've talked about have kind of boom because of them in part. So I just want to thank them for everything that they've done. This podcast is the property of the School of Communication and Journalism at South Dakota State University, which reserves all rights to its use. Music by Cody M Johnson and Tyler Addison James is licensed through AP Music.