I get asked a lot, “How’d you know you wanted to be a journalist?”
For a while, I didn’t really have a good answer.
I went to journalism school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — roll ‘skers — and high school journalism is huge in the Cornhusker State.
So while a lot of my peers had tried this reporting thing out before they decided to go into massive debt, it had just kind of ... happened to me.
The answer I’d mostly landed on was that I knew I wanted to do something creative that was also rooted in facts. Journalism is one of the few careers that I’ve discovered where you get to do both.
But the more I’ve reflected on how I got here, the more I realize that the seeds were planted long before I made a seemingly random choice as a 17-year-old.
Another thing to know about me is that I’m terrible at picking favorites. There are too many nuances and what-ifs and caveats for me to definitively rank just about anything.
So for my favorite stories of 2025 recap, I wanted to look at one of my favorite beats I covered this year and tie them back to those seeds I was mentioning.
For it being an odd year, there sure were a lot of elections.
There were, of course, the school referendums and special school board elections scattered throughout the year. Things are starting to pick up for 2026, too, with candidates announcing runs for governor and other statewide offices, and Angie Craig and Peggy Flanagan visiting the Arrowhead as they campaign for U.S. Senate.
The special election for Itasca County Board also took up a good chunk of the beginning of the year.
But the election that got the most coverage from us was the special election for Senate District 6.
News Director Chelsey Perkins explained the arrest of Republican state Sen. Justin Eichorn and the subsequent election in our Top 10 stories.
But what I want to talk about are the maps.
Many of you know I love digging into data and creating graphics to go with the numbers.
Elections let me do that in two major ways: fundraising and results.
We had a good sense of where things would land even before the primary, because we knew Keri Heintzeman had raised tens of thousands of dollars more than the next closest candidate.
What was also interesting to see was while most donations were coming from the Brainerd lakes area, Heintzeman also had a significant number of donors from the Twin Cities, and multiple candidates had donations from outside Minnesota.
But even more fun for me than fundraising maps are results maps.
I’ve gone on rants before about how election results are reported. Our coverage is just another example of how hyper-local we are, and how we’re filling a gap.
I find precinct-level results fascinating because I think they are a great reminder that the people are the heart of elections, not the candidates.
The bluest township in the Senate District 6 election was Ross Lake, northwest of Crosby. Two-thirds voted for DFLer Denise Slipy. The reddest was Gail Lake, east of Pine River. But just north of that, Wabedo Township was nearly perfectly split, 50/50.
Do maps like this tell us everything? No. But they do tell a story about how every individual vote contributes to an election result, and I love sharing that story with you.
So what does this have to do with me being a reporter? I’ll admit, some of it was self-indulgent data-digging. Oops.
But I bring up elections because I was obsessed with them before I’d even considered a career in journalism.
I was on the speech team in high school and competed in a category called extemporaneous speaking. I had half an hour to research, write and practice a seven-minute speech answering a political question. If that sounds stressful, that’s because it was.
But when I got to answer an election question? That was a cakewalk. Something about analyzing the motives and maneuvering, the campaigning and caucuses, did and still does fascinate me.
But I often think the people get lost in election coverage, and that has always bugged me.
That’s something we try to rectify now, with things like the result maps, explainers, callouts for audience questions and election guides: all of it aimed to try to give you the information you want and need.
That people element is the other thing that explains to me how I became a journalist.
I’ve always said that, at large, I am not a people person. I’m very much so an introvert. But on an individual level, I am enthralled with people. I love to hear their stories, their passions, what makes them tick and what weighs them down each day. It’s at this level that the beauty of humanity comes to life.
My job lets me ask people those questions and share that beauty with others. What a gift.
That wasn’t quite a favorites list, because as you now know, I’m not a fan, but it was something adjacent to it to put a wrap on 2025.
There are more hectic elections and powerful stories on the horizon in 2026. I’m excited to share it with all of you.
Happy New Year!
- How our 2025 election coverage explains why I became a journalist
- From Minnesota to the Borderlands: Amy Thielen and Hank Shaw in conversation
- 2025 Top 10: Permit request reignites wild rice sulfate debate; Eichorn arrest prompts resignation, special election
- The Setlist: Where to hear live music Dec. 31-Jan.3, 2025
- Column: Jennifer Barr's 5 brightest 'Bright Spots' of 2025
