For the first time in Mustang Morning News history, our advanced students were assigned to write a 3-4 minute documentary. I was placed in a group with two of my other class members, Robert McMahon and Lauren Farkas.

We decided to base our documentary on Obama’s “Because” Campaign that went into affect this past January. This was when companies that had contracts with the federal government were asked to make 7% of their workforce people with disabilities. If companies didn’t make this happen or at least show that they are trying to, their contracts would be cancelled as well as being barred from winning future contracts. This campaign could reshape 200,000 companies that generate $700 billion a year in contracts with the federal government.

I felt that this was something that could be affecting our own community. So my partners and I decided to call the nearby facilities that provide services to connect disabled students with jobs. We contacted Hirsch, the Department of Mental Health, SWSELPA, and many more. No one was willing to comment on the subject. Then we contacted Ellyn Schneider (the executive director of MBUSD’s special education program) and she gave us lots of great information. She led us to contact Michael Greenberg, the president of Sketchers, who has been very generous in donating to the school’s friendship circle as well as providing jobs to students with disabilities. Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to comment either. For a while we weren’t sure what to do since no one was willing to talk to high school students about a nationwide problem. We decided to ask around friendship circle for any information on other support facilities we could contact. This is when we met Barry Smith, one of the heads of the Friendship circle program, and he used to work at El Camino placing disabled kids into activities that would lead them to having a stable job.

This experience showed me what it was like to be an actual journalist because not everyone is going to like you or want to give you their opinion. Our job is to seek out the truth in societal issues and we must pursue that truth no matter the obstacles that get in the way. I had many people hang up on me over the phone, which I had never experienced before since I’ve only ever done high school based stories. This showed me what a real career in journalism would be like and even though it was very humbling, it taught me that in order to be a good journalist, you need to be aggressive and look for information from any possible candidate or angle you can think of.