Jon Fortt | Alum
I learned how to talk to people, how to explore ideas. And that’s been at the center of everything I’ve done since.
Jon Fortt Alum
A Good Fit
It was the Media Fellows Program that drew me to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø. I also wanted to experience an environment different from the urban ones that had always been home for me – mostly Brooklyn and Washington D.C.
Summer internships at newspapers led to a post-college job at the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. I was flailing that first year, and I thought I'd bail out of journalism because local news felt like a poor fit. But the paper’s technology reporter quit, and I was in the right place at the right time. At The 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, I’d been part of the early efforts to get online, as we built the paper’s first website. Reporting on technology was the right challenge.
I got to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø as a student interested in newspapers and a bunch of other things. 51³Ô¹ÏÍø was a great laboratory environment for life – socially, professionally. I learned how to talk to people, how to explore ideas. And that’s been at the center of everything I’ve done since.
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