MOSES LAKE — Elizah Lourdes Rendorio didn’t really know what to expect from the Columbia Basin. 

“I was a little bit scared, I'm not gonna lie,” she said. “I just knew that my audience is very different from the people that I usually write to, or the people that I surround myself with or grew up with. So. I was definitely hesitant at first. I was scared that I was going to (upset) the wrong people, but I haven't. People have been very receptive, and I don't think there was any reason for me to be scared.” 

Rendorio, 20, is the Columbia Basin Herald’s intern covering this year’s legislative session in Olympia. She discovered journalism as a high school freshman in Shoreline, just north of Seattle.

“I wrote an essay on ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ … and I just realized how much I enjoyed writing it, and how much I like to bring attention to social justice issues,” she said. 

Rendorio started out majoring in history, she said, but decided she’d rather write than teach and switched to journalism. Her passion for writing about politics in particular dovetailed neatly with the internship. 

“This internship kind of fell on my lap,” she said. “I did not expect that I was going to be doing this … It happened very suddenly, but this was exactly what I wanted to do.” 

Young people who are eager to learn and want to develop their skills as journalists, like Rendorio is doing, are an asset to any news organization. Mentoring them to understand the ins and outs of reporting and knowing how to a story so that informs in a neutral way is important, Columbia Basin Herald Managing Editor R. Hans “Rob” Miller said.  

“Elizah has been doing a great job and turning to all of the sources she speaks with in an open-minded way,” Miller said. “The first steps into journalism and understanding that a dedication to straight truth is justice is important to instill in young reporters.” 

Rendorio said she’s discovered that the social and political issues facing the dry side of the state are very different from Seattle’s problems, and that people in the Basin are just as passionate about them. One story she wrote, on overtime pay for farm workers, garnered quite a number of comments on Facebook, many of them contentious. She didn’t realize she had touched on such a sensitive topic until later, she said, but she was proud of the work that went into the article. 

“I don't say I wouldn't care about the reception, but I try not to look too much into it … That was an article that was really hard for me to write, but I think it was also the most rewarding,” she said. 

Miller said he saw that article act as a real learning experience for Rendorio. Labor unions, legislators, farmers and farmworkers all had something to gain or lose with how the still-pending legislation comes out at the end of the session. 

“Controversy can be part of the job, and topics aren’t controversial for no reason. Making sure as many viewpoints and factors are included in controversial topics is the only way to be fair. Elizah ended up digging in, doing the extra reporting and getting a solid article put together. Ideally, it’ll help the two sides of the situation communicate with one another,” Miller said. 

Rendorio said she’d like the opportunity to write more about the arts, but the political landscape will always be her first love. 

“Politics is something that I've been passionate about my whole life,” she said. “I do want to hopefully continue doing that … People don’t realize how much politics affects everybody in every state, no matter what, and it's important that people are informed by that, even though it can get really tiring and jaded sometimes.” 

Young journalists are the future of the profession, Rendorio said, but the world they inhabit isn’t that of their parents and grandparents and the familiar models of print and broadcast are morphing into something different. 

“I think the news is changing faster than we think, and the traditional way of news is not necessarily going to be received the best, especially from people in my generation,” she said. “I don't have the time to watch the news on the TV … It's just social media. That's just the main way that people get their information. It's very important to me that I carry that on as I get older, because journalism is what makes the world go round. People always say it's a dying profession, but it's not. It just needs to be changed to meet people where they're at now.” 

Where she’s going to ply her trade after graduation is still up in the air, she said, but a small community newspaper holds a certain appeal to her. As a product of the Seattle area, Rendorio was familiar with the “Seattle freeze,” the difficulty newcomers have in the Seattle area making connections with local people. Even at UW, students don’t generally socialize outside their own majors, she said. She was so accustomed to that dynamic that she had thought friendly small towns were the stuff of fiction. Her experiences in the Basin changed that perception, she said. 

“Your community is so much stronger than I've ever really experienced,” she said. “Hearing about Shop with a Cop, or about how your representatives actually go to your county fair … I came here, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is real life.’ People truly go out of their way to do stuff for their community. And I really enjoy that.”