Adviser Update Adviser Update Winter 2018 | Page 40

firmly back the president but still question some of his moves. “Growing up in southwest Missouri, it’s incredibly red, which is great,” says Gunter. But a journalist’s job is to gather facts so that others “can voice their opinions and have their beliefs.” BEYOND THE BINARY: RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPING NEW SOURCES AND POVS Bursting the filter bubble has never been so easy. A social media favorite since its launch in May 2016, BlueFeed/ RedFeed is a Facebook-driven tool that offers an “at-a- glance” look at both sides of the political divide. Though posts offer as much heat as light—and some might question what algorithm The Wall Street Journal uses to designate pages as “liberal” or “conservative”— BlueFeed/ RedFeed makes comparing, contrasting and following new points of view easy. The drawback: It works for only a few selected topics, such as immigration and abortion. But that leaves room for students to engineer their own, like Wingspan editors did. News editor Sophia Jackson, 17, concurs: “Before you can write a story about politics, you have to throw your own opinion out the door and research the facts.” Thanks to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO, Gunter and a friend had tickets in the blue section, in the center of the inaugural seats and close enough to see Trump. Arriving early, Gunter’s friend took a “beautiful” shot of the sun rising over the Capitol building. But the mood changed as inaugural guests arrived. “People would just boo and yell and ask for the president instead of listening to the people that he had invited to speak. And I was kind of astonished,” said Gunter. “You’d think that the people who were there to attend would respect that. But that didn’t seem to be the case.” While there was no physical aggression, “there were a lot of racial slurs yelled” and negative comments on “anything Islam or Muslim,” Gunter said. When Hillary Clinton appeared, “there [were] a lot of chants directed to her and truly being sexist, saying ‘Get that woman out’ and the ‘p’ word.” Gunter was shocked: “As a journalist I had known it would be there, but being there and seeing it and hearing it I was not prepared for.” Yet she’s glad she went: “In some ways, it’s changed my viewpoint. It’s made it more realistic.” After the inauguration, Wingspan editors put more emphasis on state and national politics. Students covered a speech by Trump during an August stop in nearby Springfield, including comments on tax reform. A year later, “looking back, I have no regrets [about covering the inaugural],” said Gunter, now a freshman at the University of Arkansas, where she’s majoring in international business. “Despite my differences in belief with our current president, I got to be a part of history, and that means everything.”