Kathryn Sears
A typical Monday in the Courier staff room during the semester starts with the student editors reading out story pitches for other writers to take on. For the past four semesters, Seamus Bozeman has been pitching each news story. He has been the news editor for the Courier since fall of 2022 when he accepted the role his second week of class.
“A lot of new people came in,” Bozeman said, “…and we had to somehow fill these roles and news was just one of the openings. I was like, ‘all right what the heck,’ you know? I’d already been kind of gravitating towards news [writing].”
Writing for the Courier requires you to first take Beginning Journalism, taught by Professor Nathan McIntire. It is probably the most traditional format class on the track, mixed with lectures and lesson plans. After that, all journalism classes are structured with the student editors leading the class structure to pitch stories, edit, and publish every week for the Courier.
“[Beginning Journalism was the] best class I’ve ever taken,” Bozeman said. “I couldn’t wait to start with the newspaper.”
“Seamus was quiet,” said Michael Leyva, previous managing editor for the Courier. “At first his drafts were LONG, but within a short time he was able to become a sharp and entertaining writer.”
In these past two years at the Courier, Bozeman has written stories ranging from the previous superintendent president leaving, an investigation on the closed pool on campus, and voter guides for PCC board of trustees and Pasadena City Council published with the news organization, LAist. He credits the collaborative work to landing him a position interning in the experimental news division of LAist this summer.
“[I’ll miss] the community that I built around here,” Bozeman said. “And all the sources I’ve built up over the last two years, because it’s taken a lot of work to get where I am.”
A highlight of connections he made during his interviews with sources was with PCC spokesperson, Alex Boekelheide. After an interview about the school’s centennial celebration, they spend the later half talking about flying planes and how PCC used to have an aviation program.
Some can find news writing intimidating. When Bozeman was pitching news writing to current students in spring beginning journalism class, many replied with hesitation and groans. But with local news outlets continuing to dwindle in staff and funding, the need to fill in the gap for reporting is still present. It’s something Bozeman is deeply passionate about.
“It’s really about taking in every moment you’re writing, interviewing, looking over documents or anything else as a learning experience and learning something new about the world,” Bozeman said. “And for those just starting out, just read every article you can, read through the stylebook for your publication and talk to Nathan and ask him every journalistic question under the sun. Also ask him to grade your stories with more scrutiny, and necessary criticism. It’s one of the reasons I don’t have a comma after every fifth word anymore. I quite literally owe it to Nathan for pushing me and making me the journalist I am today.”
Bozeman will be transferring to California State University, Chico in the fall to pursue a degree in journalism. He’s excited to bike around campus and write for The Orion, Chico’s student run newspaper, but is still planning to find time to pitch news stories to the Courier.
Laura Dux is a first year student journalist for The Courier.
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