Our most recent Success Story with Kate Farmer, a Young Voices Social Mobility Fellow who was recently awarded the Joseph Rago Memorial Fellowship in Journalism through The Fund for American Studies. Kate will officially be joining The Wall Street Journal as a full-time writer and editor on WSJ's Opinion team.
Kate Farmer's Success Story Interview:
You were one of Young Voices' first Social Mobility Fellows. What drew you to talk about Urbanism, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice?
I was! I can’t emphasize enough how much the Social Mobility Fellowship pushed me as a writer, and how much I needed it for my growth.
When I first applied to Young Voices, I was a teenage college sophomore with zero media or journalism training. I was probably the youngest person in my Contributor Program cohort, and although I was a strong writer, my lack of confidence held me back. Starting the Social Mobility Fellowship, and being surrounded by some Young Voices heavyweight writers — Neetu Arnold, Sofia Hamilton, Ethan Brown — was intimidating. But it was those people who ended up being some of my biggest champions. I specifically remember Neetu pushing me to pitch my article ideas with confidence, and Sofia encouraging me to not let my age or lack of experience hold down my voice. It was the ability to rub shoulders with them in person, and to receive professional reporting training for the first time, that gave me a huge boost in my writing. My first piece out of the fellowship was a clear notch above anything I’d written before.
As for my topics, I’ve always been interested in the realm of what’s often referred to as “poverty studies” or “social mobility studies.” I’m interested in homelessness especially because it’s so underserved a topic — I’m frequently told that covering homelessness is a “career killer,” and that nobody wants to read about it. But it's a massive and complex issue that affects millions of Americans, and I’d love my role as a writer to be that person who makes people care.
What topic do you think is the least talked about within mainstream media or opinion journalism that deserves more attention?
Like I said, homelessness is so neglected a topic. And because media is a competitive field, and the most interesting or stimulating topics get the most clicks, homelessness and social mobility policy usually fail to catch readers’ eyes. But it doesn’t have to be that way — and strong, incisive reporting speaks for itself. That level of underservice also means that there are a lot of big stories out there yet to be found. On my first reporting trip ever, I dug up a huge scandal of bureaucratic disarray and homelessness funding loss in my hometown, and it ended up running nationally in Reason Magazine. So many things like that sit near the surface in the field of homelessness, and they’re an indication that the subject needs more writers and more attention.
Since you've written a lot about the issue of homelessness, what do you think is the biggest cause of it, and is there a solid answer to resolving the crisis on a state-by-state basis?
It’s so complex. There’s no simple answer to fixing it, and that’s why homelessness — as a field of government services — is one of the highest-waste areas. Billions are spent every year just for the problem to worsen, and it’s common practice for a local government to spend thousands on one individual just for them to return to the streets a few months later. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s one of the most complex policy puzzles you can find.
In general, though, there are a few rules-of-thumb about homelessness that I often emphasize in my writing. The first is that homelessness is overwhelmingly misunderstood as just a housing problem, and that misconception is one of the main reasons why so many expensive and well-intentioned programs fail. This often boils down to understanding the difference between temporary and chronic homelessness. Temporary homelessness is about emergency shelters, job reintegration programs, and resources dedicated to getting a normally functional life back on track. But the real driver behind the national uptick in homelessness has been a rise in chronic homelessness. Chronic homelessness is plagued by drug addiction, mental illness, and unstable families, and you can’t properly address it without addressing its roots. That’s what makes working on homelessness so complex, and also why writing on homelessness is so stimulating — it requires pulling from lots of different disciplines for complete answers.
How has working with Young Voices helped you as a writer and commentator?
Young Voices has really given me everything — writing and editing training, reporting lessons, PR advice and connections, but especially confidence. There are so many young writers out there with talent, but it’s the resources and coaching YV offers that really allows them to grow into their full potential. Before starting YV, as an early college student, my writing was rarely given any criticism. But when I joined YV, my first articles were torn up with edits and suggestions for improvement. YV taught me how to write — and think — at the highest level in a way my university never did. When pushed in these conditions, I progressed rapidly, and doors in my life started opening. It is a wonderful thing that YV put so much faith and confidence into the 19-year-old writer I was, and I’m very grateful for it.
Which media placement that the Young Voices content team helped you place are you most proud of?
I’d say my Reason piece on the lost homelessness funding was the one I’m most proud of. But to throw a different hat into the ring, Young Voices recently connected me with an opportunity to write a long-form article on AI therapy (a fun side interest I’ve covered over the years), and the media hit I did for it was an hour-long appearance on The AI Report Live. I do not have any sophisticated background in AI or tech, and had never done a hit longer than twenty minutes before, so this was very out of my comfort zone. But YV has always pushed me to take gigs that seem intimidating at first, and pulling it off successfully gave me a lot of confidence. I ended up having fun doing it, too.
How has Young Voices impacted your career trajectory?
Publishing op-eds and doing media hits through Young Voices has opened so many doors in my life. It helped me enter full-time work as a journalist at a major newspaper, but even if journalism isn’t your final career goal, just having a few published op-eds in your area of expertise do so much to push your resume or application to the top of the heap — no matter where you’re trying to go. Even just for getting a good policy job, or for improving your prospects for grad school, it goes a long way.
For me, writing for the Wall Street Journal was once a distant dream, and I’m still pinching myself that I get to be there full-time.
Being awarded the Joseph Rago Memorial Fellowship, what advice would you give to young professionals aspiring to build a career in journalism?
Never feel like you’re too young or too inexperienced to start. You don’t need a “real job” or a college degree to write and publish at the highest level. That’s even the case for 19-year-olds! Seek out criticism in your work, and take on new projects that intimate you — you will improve faster than you think. Young Voices has always pushed me to challenge myself, and that’s really how I’ve been able to grow.
I’d also recommend finding ways to meet and befriend other writers. Being mentored by other members of the YV community helped me find my place in the field, and allowed me to learn things about the writing and journalism community I couldn’t have known before. It really does take a village!
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