Jodi Kantor

And also saying, if you go to conservatory, are you leaving yourself vulnerable because you're actually not going to have a conventional BA?

Yeah.

You've also written that at a certain point, cultural reporting began to feel unsatisfying because it didn't clearly change outcomes, which is sort of an interesting way of thinking about that piece.

It's revealing what is happening, but it's not really changing what the potential outcome could be for the next class of Juilliard graduates.

What were you looking for in journalism that you weren't finding when you were doing cultural editing and reporting?

Well, first of all, I just wanted to be a reporter.

I started, like, I had gotten this fancy editing job at a really young age, and I started becoming jealous of the reporters.

I was like, oh, like, wow, to, like, get on a plane and witness something exciting and translate it.

For the New York Times audience, that's amazing.

I want to do that.

I had a little imposter syndrome.

I felt a little bit like I was helping run a hospital and I'd never practiced medicine.

And then the biggest thing, Debbie, the entire culture of the Times venerates reporting.

Like going out and getting information that people wouldn't otherwise have.

Like everybody kind of knows that's the best job in the building.

And I wanted it.

But back to your point about wanting to have impact.

I don't think I really understood journalistic impact at that stage.

I think it came later.

I think it came through covering the Obamas for six or seven years because my reporting assignment became an unbelievably exciting thing.