While some students focus on sciences, and others on humanities, Citlali Martinez’s (11) goal has always been to make her learning as diverse as possible. This led her to find an unexpected home in broadcast journalism.
“For broadcast in general, [I like] storytelling and being creative, [and] using lots of tools like online editing software,” Martinez said.
Her broadcast journey began with a suggestion from CSP and Broadcast Journalism teacher Rob Casas to apply to PBS News Student Reporting Labs (SRL), a yearly program that assembles students from across the nation to help decide the future curriculum of youth broadcast programs and to speak out on SRL channels.
As one of 33 students accepted into SRL, she meets monthly with the team to identify local and global issues to highlight.
“The main thing we do is decide on the topics that people from around the country can decide to make stories on, so I would say I’m proudest of helping influence those,” Martinez said. “I wrote a lot about climate advocacy, [so] that’s a lot of what I’ve been involved with, and that ended up on the list to vote [on]. So I’m proud that I’ll be able to be part of the reason that in a lot of communities, there’ll be a lot more awareness about that.”
Throughout her high-school career, Martinez has explored numerous extracurriculars, and is involved with programs ranging from the Red Cross to the Conservation and Environmental Stewardship Apprenticeship Program.
“As a junior, all the time people [ask], ‘Are you interested in [pursuing] this?’ when you’re in a club,” she said. “For me, I’m really trying to explore as much as I can, and I am interested in [each extracurricular], but I can’t tell if [they’re] something I want to do forever, because I feel like it’s not right for me to box myself into something.”
She said that this mentality made her the ideal candidate for SRL.
“I was accepted into it because I was someone who had little experience, which sounds counterintuitive, but that’s what they do,” Martinez said. “They have people who have a lot of experience in broadcast and people who don’t, so that they can have a good mix of ideas.”
Since the program united diverse students, Martinez said it introduced her to an unlikely group of friends.
“I would say for me, [the program] has brought me a lot of good because I’ve gotten to know so many people from other states—I would have never known them,” Martinez said. “We work together a lot. We have breakout rooms [on Zoom] because we can’t all meet in person, and it’s at different times for everyone because [some members] are on the East Coast, but I would say [we’re] tight. The head of it, [editorial director] Marie Cusick, has a lot of open communication with us [and will] set up an individual Zoom [so] we can talk through stuff and get more information.”
Martinez said she also found valuable role models in the guest speakers, prominent figures in the broadcast world who taught the group about different aspects of journalism.
“Just seeing all these people, how they didn’t have really a linear path, how they were just exploring other things, [is] really inspiring,” Martinez said. “These people didn’t just go through high school and [think], ‘I want to do Broadcast journalism.’ They were from all sorts of different backgrounds.”
She said her time in the program has helped her learn more about herself and the career paths she could take in the future.
“I feel like people could see me as maybe all over the place, because I’m doing [journalism] and then I have some STEM extracurriculars, and I’m just doing too many things, but for me it’s been helpful in figuring out what I like, what I don’t like,” Martinez said. “The more you know what you don’t like, the more you can focus on what to do. Eventually, I’m going to have to declare a major and everything, and I just want to explore lots of things and find things that I like and combine them into one. I would like to take these together and tell stories about them, and just promote advocacy more through broadcast journalism. Mainly, I’m exploring, [so] I don’t need to find one golden thing. I want to do everything.”
