When I was asked to give a keynote talk to more than 100 high schoolers attending a recent journalism summer camp, the director requested that I avoid dwelling on the gloom and doom in the industry.

Past speakers had mentioned “no money” and called journalism a “sad industry” in their remarks, which isn’t the message the Media Now camp at Drake University tries to give aspiring young journalists.

Most working journalists are painfully aware of the lack of money and stability in our profession. There’s also the ongoing proliferation of misinformation and deliberate disinformation -- along with the looming threat of AI stealing our work. Most people like to stay in their information bubbles, which confirm what they already believe.

Plus, everyone hates “the media.”

I’m a part of “the media,” and I often rail against the problems I see in news coverage. But I also know how most good-faith journalists operate: They seek out compelling information, do their best to verify it and share it with others.

I’ve talked to colleagues who will privately admit that they find it difficult to rally young people to jump aboard an industry fighting for its life. But even though I recognize the news media’s significant challenges and failures, I love helping people work on their writing. Any career path -- from scientist to entrepreneur -- benefits from good writing skills. I told the campers about my unexpected path to the newsroom and encouraged them to be open to adventure and taking some risks.

Looking back, I wish I had shared a more important message. Even for the students who may never step foot in a newsroom or publish a single story, learning how the work happens -- fact-finding, researching, interviewing, verifying and writing -- is more vital than ever in this media landscape.

Many adults cannot distinguish between real and fake information online. The altered images, conspiracies and alternative facts have gotten much harder to spot.

When my small group of students was working on a design for our class flag, I shared a favorite quote that's often attributed to Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Easy reading is damned hard writing." It was painted on a pillar I sat near in the old Post-Dispatch’s fifth floor. When I would get stuck while writing, I would look up at it. It felt like Hawthorne was speaking directly to me.

One of the students asked if we could put the quote on our flag, but I was worried that the camp directors might frown upon us flying a flag with a curse word painted on it.

The students ended up painting a quill instead. Interesting that they chose a writing relic from the past.

During the four-day camp, the students in our writing class worked on two stories. From interviewing to workshopping their first drafts to polishing their revisions, I saw their work improve.

It’s been a while since I spent so much time in the company of so many high schoolers. It has a way of making you feel young and old at the same time. I overheard a colleague make a reference to Lassie; none of the students had any idea who or what a "Lassie" was.

My colleague described it as a helpful dog on TV.

The student said, “Like 'Blue's Clues'?”

Obviously, different generations have different cultural markers. I didn’t realize ours had faded so far into oblivion.

During one class, I mentioned that newspaper journalists think about the length of their stories in inches rather than word count. A student asked why. "How many of you have ever seen an actual printed newspaper?" I asked. Every student raised their hand, which was more than I expected. I told them about column inches.

That may be as relevant to their future careers as a quill.

The tools may change, but the quest for truth and good storytelling lives on. I'm glad that there are young people still willing to join it.

My father, who rarely initiates phone calls anymore, happened to call the day the Supreme Court ruled on Donald Trump’s immunity case.

He asked how I was doing.

Given that the highest court in America formally concluded for the first time that presidents may be protected from criminal charges for criminal acts, I was not in a good place.

Six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices concluded that if a president takes actions within his official capacity, he cannot be criminally prosecuted. A president can still be criminally liable for "personal" actions, but how to differentiate those from "official" actions remains unclear.

Legal experts say the ruling puts our democracy at risk. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

This should be chilling to everyone -- whether you fear the official actions of a King Trump or a King Biden.

At any rate, I answered my dad honestly -- about the recent Supreme Court rulings, the disastrous presidential debate and how I felt about all of it.

“Talking to Aisha is scary,” he said.

There’s a balance between keeping it real and scaring people. This past week, I probably crossed the line.

For those of us fighting deep discouragement and existential dread about where this country may be headed, it can be helpful to think of people in similar positions in different historical times and places. When the present is too unsettling and the future too alarming, I revisit the challenging chapters of the past.

In 1978, Czech dramatist, political dissident and later statesman Vaclav Havel wrote “The Power of the Powerless,” which became a manifesto for those resisting Communist regimes. He argued that even when political rhetoric and the public sphere are filled with lies, it is still possible for individuals to live within the truth. If it’s the horrors of history that haunt us, the small, everyday acts of heroism should also inspire us.

Fortunately, the United States still has plenty of ways for its citizens to engage in social and political activism. The most basic and fundamental way is voting. But encouraging others that their words and actions matter is vital -- and helping them figure out how to get involved is even better. Often, the remedy to the angst and vitriol I see on social media is to spend time with the people who continue to do the work -- regardless of how uphill the journey may seem.

I know that for those who feel unheard for too long, there’s a strong temptation to disengage from the news or tune it out. When people feel disenfranchised and powerless, that's when we see resignation and apathy. There’s also a strong impulse to deny the severity of how things have changed and how much worse things might get. Denial is an age-old form of coping.

But, as Havel reminds us, the people are never helpless or powerless. Authoritarians wish to cultivate that feeling among people they wish to oppress.

Societies and institutions can change very quickly -- in either direction. A legal scholar reminded me that when good things have happened in history, it’s often right after moments that seem the most bleak.

Consider that the current string of right-wing judicial success is the culmination of more than 50 years of effort and strategy on the part of conservative activists. It was the liberal Warren court that dramatically expanded civil rights in America, and a strong conservative opposition rose against it.

When I have felt most depressed and defeated about politics, the media or the courts in this country, I remind myself that it’s precisely because I believe so deeply in our country’s greatest ideals that moving further from "liberty and justice for all" is heart-wrenching.

I texted my father later that evening to let him know that I was starting to feel better because I was changing my attitude. I wasn’t going to give into futility and fatalism.

“I’m gearing up to fight for a better country,” I wrote.

I considered it a promise to my father and my children.

We’re here to play the long game.

A great paradox in modern American culture is how politically divided we are as a nation but how ideologically similar our friendships have become.

It’s hard to get a sense of how people feel about an issue when those around you feel the same way. Polls can provide an educated guess, but can also be easily skewed.

Elections, though, offer more solid insights. So it was fascinating to see the results of a recent faculty vote at a university embroiled in controversy about student protests and the subsequent police crackdown.

Washington University in St. Louis resides in a blue bubble in a deep-red state. The campus has historically had a high percentage of Jewish students, with 24% of current undergrads identifying as Jewish. The Anti-Defamation League ranked it as better than most universities at combating antisemitism on campus. On college boards frequented by parents and applicants, it is often mentioned as a place Jewish students should consider transferring if they feel unsafe at their universities.

WU’s full-time faculty considered two resolutions focused on the protests against the university’s ties to Boeing, which sells warplanes and munitions to Israel for use in the war in Gaza. Police arrested 100 people at an April 27 protest, with several students and faculty suspended by the university administration.

The first resolution called for the university to decline to pursue all charges and rescind suspensions against the students and employees. A second resolution sought to create a faculty-led committee to investigate the protests and the administrative policy involved.

The first resolution failed with a vote of 550 in favor, 552 against and 52 abstaining. The second overwhelmingly passed.

The vote breakdown by the various schools within the university revealed a more nuanced picture that also reflects broader societal attitudes.

For the schools on the main Danforth campus, where undergrads and most graduate departments reside -- and where the protests took place -- the voting wasn’t close at all. Among the Arts and Sciences faculty, 210 members supported dropping penalties for pro-Palestinian protesters versus 80 opposed, with 17 abstaining. Similarly large majorities of faculty in the Brown School of Social Work, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and the law school supported the first resolution. These disciplines also tend to attract more liberal thinkers.

The faculty from the schools of engineering and business overwhelmingly voted against dropping the penalties. The medical school faculty, who are located a few miles away, voted 327 against to 245 in favor, with 31 abstaining. These occupations tend to vote more conservatively.

Like the rest of America, political beliefs likely colored the way professors viewed the protests and the administration’s response to them. But the faculty members most heavily involved with teaching undergraduates, and those closest to the protests, largely rejected the narrative that the protesters were violent or “pro-Hamas,” as critics have tried to portray them.

They know their students and colleagues.

By and large, faculty I’ve spoken to believe students have the right to protest and express their opinions on how the university invests its money and their tuition dollars.

The faculty voted to create a new committee charged with compiling evidence and testimonials about the protests and looking at the university’s policy for “demonstrations and disruptions.” The vote of 745 to 397 approving this signals significant faculty concern over the administration’s handling of the protests. The committee would have faculty representatives from each of WU’s schools, along with representatives from the student body and administration.

An email from Chancellor Andrew Martin to faculty in response to the votes said the board of trustees would need to respond to any formal inquiry about university operations. He offered to share the results of a board-led review, as deemed appropriate by the board, and possibly answer specific questions rather than agreeing to participate in a faculty-led review.

Andrew Burksy, chair of the board of trustees, sent a follow-up letter stating the university would not participate in any faculty inquiry. He said the board had initiated its own review and that a parallel faculty-led review would be “counterproductive” and “inconsistent” with seeking clarity and understanding around the issues.

Unlike the silos in which many of us live and work, this faculty effort had been an attempt to bring together those with meaningful disagreements on these contentious and sensitive issues. A faculty-led report could have shed light on the facts rather than perceptions and spin.

The faculty may decide to move forward with some sort of inquiry regardless of the board's position. Given the tumultuous political landscape and the prospects for renewed protests when students return in the fall, there’s some urgency to this work.

It is revealing that the chancellor punted to the board, and the board shut down the overwhelming faculty vote.

We’ve seen how much students’ voices matter to the administration on this issue.

Now the faculty has found out about their own.