By Jake Dziubla
Round Table online editor-in-chief
Lauren Redding stood on top of a parking deck, waiting for a man that she had never met before to drive her to an undisclosed location just so she can get the facts needed for her controversial story. If the identity of this “Deepthroat” is revealed, their job could be in serious jeopardy and Redding could find herself in hot water.
In just two years, Redding went from working on relatively small stories as the style editor for the Round Table, the Middletown High School student newspaper, to her Watergate-like story as a rookie reporter for the University of Maryland student newspaper, the Diamondback, that gained statewide attention.
Beginning as a writer for the style column of the Round Table, the Middletown High School newspaper, Lauren Redding did not take a serious approach to journalism, initially. That all changed when she read a moving novel about a journalist held hostage when in a war zone. This novel was the spark that started the fire. Redding became inspired, to the extent that she now had aspirations to become a journalist. Redding spoke with her adviser, Noah Kady, about her recent change of heart and she became the eventual online editor-in-chief, something unheard of for a rookie journalist.
On Friday Nov. 11,Redding shared her experiences at MHS and at the University of Maryland where she is now the editor-in-chief of the Diamondback, the independent student newspaper.
Redding hit the ground running after speaking with Kady about her new aspirations and began to stand out amongst her fellow classmates.
Redding quickly moved her way up the ranks in the journalism hierarchy and became the online editor-in-chief; a position in which she believed was previously out of her reach. These experiences with Kady, and the journalism class, contributed to her journalism scholarship to theUniversityof Maryland following her senior year. However, her success mostly stems not only from experience and natural ability, but from her drive and “thirst” that comes only from within.
“You have to put everything you have into it. You need to want it,” Redding said.
This fearlessness and determination is needed for her laborious editorial job at the Universityof Maryland that she earned after an internship with the Frederick News Post. As an editor, she may go days without eating, sleep in her office, and brave the elements just to follow local action and facilitate the paper. In the “sink or swim” atmosphere that accompanied Redding’s new position, she quickly learned the ropes and added new journalistic knowledge to her basic experience.
Redding has had writing appear in the McClathy Tribune, a wire service that appears in newspapers across the country. She has an interest in health-based journalism and hopes to eventually become a health journalist. She is currently studying at the University of Maryland where she maintains her position as the editor-in-chief of the Diamondback.
