A Quick Look Inside the Life of Dakota Palmer

A Quick Look Inside the Life of Dakota Palmer

By Rebecca Gutierrez

Dakota Palmer was just five years old when she decided to become a journalist. Transfixed by the coverage unfolding after the results of 9/11, Palmer realized the importance of journalism and decided to pursue a career uncovering stories.

Palmer began writing for her high school newspaper and discovered she had a gift for storytelling. After switching her major from education to journalism, Palmer devoted her time to honing her skills as a writer. 

It was always Palmer’s dream to attend Syracuse University, and with an earlier than anticipated graduation date approaching, Palmer took a shot and applied to graduate school. She was accepted into the Magazine, Newspaper and Online Journalism program at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Palmer has an interest in writing for sports, music, and breaking news. She hopes to find her calling during her year at Newhouse.

She considers herself a lover of a variety of music, excluding country. If she could choose her own walk-up song, it would be “Raspberry Beret” by Prince.

Transcribed Interview 

Interviewer: Rebecca Gutierrez

Interviewee: Dakota Palmer

Q: So what brought you to Syracuse?

A: Well journalism is something I've always wanted to do, which I feel like all of us have said that in this program. When I was super little I remember when 9/11 happened and I didn't understand what was going on, but all I knew was that my mom was crying and watching the TV. The only way that I knew what was happening was from these journalists reporting what was happening. So that’s when I was like, "Wow, this is a super important job." I went through high school writing for my newspaper and stuff, or the high school newspaper rather. Then, I got to college and decided I wanted to go into education. After two years, I got into a classroom and decided that I did not want to go into education. I was passionate about issues in education, but not actually teaching itself. So I switched to journalism because, like I said, it was something that I've always wanted to do. I thought I was going to graduate a semester later than I actually was, so I didn't feel like I was ready to go into the real world yet, per se. I wanted to go to Syracuse for undergrad anyways, but I didn't have the money for it, so I was like whatever, I'll give it a shot. I applied to grad school to five different places, got in here, and was like cool. Here I am. 

Q: You mentioned the coverage of 9/11. Is there a specific outlet that did really good coverage that made you, as a young girl, understand what was happening in our country?

A: I think we had, this is when MSNBC was super popular, so I'm pretty sure we watching MSNBC. I remember we were just like flipping back and forth through the channels because everywhere or everyone was covering it at that time. I was only five at that point, so I don't remember like Peter Jennings going like, "9/11 is happening." I just remember them tell these stories and I was drawn to it. 

Q: Do you want to go into stories, like breaking news stories, because I know you're interested in sports? Do you want to do breaking news in sports or policies in sports?

 A: See this is where I struggle because I'm interested in writing music stuff, sports stuff, and I have a lot of experience with news stuff in my undergrad. I feel like over the next year I'm trying to feel out what I would like to do. I'd love to do sports writing, sports broadcasting, anything like that, but I also I have a passion for news and I'm good at it. They always tie together, like you said. I feel like I could definitely do breaking news stories for sports or breaking news stories for government beats or things like that. 

Q: You also mentioned music. Would you like to do breaking news for music as well or critiquing?

A: Yeah, definitely. I'm not very good at critiquing music to be quite honest. I wrote a lot of music reviews in my undergrad newspaper, and it's all the same format. This song has this, this song has this, this album is this, this background of the artist. I really like writing feature stories about artists, how they started. A lot of people think bands are super rich because they're popular, but that's not the case. I know a band who drives their own tour bus everywhere. They don't have a fancy driver. So, I think uncovering those stories and the behind the scenes part of music is neat. As for breaking music news stories there's really not a whole lot of breaking news, I guess. That would definitely be a route that I'd be interested in taking at some point. I'm just trying to feel myself out here.

Q: What's your favorite musician or music group?

A: Oh dear God. Oh, this is hard. I like a little bit of everything to be quite honest. Obviously, I’m wearing a Prince shirt today. A big Prince fan, Michael Jackson, but I also like rock stuff. Metallica, Guns N' Roses, its really all over the place. New stuff Weezer, Death Cab for Cutie, honestly I listen to Taylor Swift. Panic at the Disco, anything really except for country. 

Q: What would be your walk up song?

A: This is so hard.

Q: OK, let's pick Prince. Since you're wearing a Prince shirt, what's your Prince walk up song?

A: Prince, I'm going to say, I can't say the one that I'm thinking it's inappropriate. I could get down to some Raspberry Beret, like Carlton from Fresh Prince out there.