Today we’d like to introduce you to Mitchell Mercer.
Hi Mitchell, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As of right now, I’m the editor-in-chief of The BlueStocking, Presbyterian College’s student newspaper. Located in Clinton, SC, our paper focuses on content that impacts the PC community as well as Laurens County and other surrounding areas. Our paper has also been recognized by the South Carolina Press Association and we won three awards in the SCPA Collegiate Contest for the first time ever last year (3rd place-arts and entertainment story, 1st place-sports story, 1st place-sports photograph). As an award-winning sports writer/photographer, it’s been a crazy journey getting to where I am today. Growing up, I always had an interest in writing and did really well on essay assignments in school, including scoring high on the ACT writing section of the test. I also had a strong interest in journalism as well since the high school I attended (Nation Ford High School) had one of the best programs in the state and knew people who worked in the journalism industry as well. Unfortunately, because I was involved with other activities and wasn’t open-minded as much when I was younger, I didn’t take part in the journalism programs Nation Ford offered and looking back at it, it was one of the biggest regrets of my high school career. After I graduated, I ended up coming to PC as a business major since my other dream schools didn’t work out, but I also struggled with a lot of my business classes and a few personal things that occurred during my initial years in college. As a result, I really didn’t know what to do. However, I got an email one day from our school’s newspaper, The BlueStocking, about a staff meeting and I decided to attend. Afterwards, I really fell in love with writing content for the PC community and the rest was pretty much history.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not really. It really has been a roller coaster ride for sure. I think there’s a lot to it. While this isn’t a shot at my institution, the first thing is that PC really doesn’t have a journalism major to offer on campus compared to other schools that do. A good friend of mine who attended Nation Ford who now works as a weekend anchor told me once that without a journalism major, you’re going to have a hard time trying to attract kids to your journalism organizations on campus. Sure enough, I feel that with this, it’s a little bit of a challenge sometimes trying to attract kids who are 110% committed to writing. The other thing is that for the past couple of years for The BlueStocking and other student media organizations on campus, we’ve struggled to recruit kids to do any content for us. For example, during my sophomore year, I was the only writer and had to do a majority of the content. It was such a massive challenge for us because while there were kids that had writing or photography talent, we were having a hard time getting them to our meetings. Lastly, since we don’t have some of the same resources like other schools, it’s definitely a challenge trying to get an internship within the journalism field without the knowledge and experience other schools are providing to their journalism majors. However, me and my writers on staff have been working a lot on overcoming these challenges. Like what I mentioned prior, we won awards from SCPA. Three of our writers had an opportunity this past summer to work with The Post and Courier down in Charleston on their SC Oasis Project. I had an internship with SCETV. The English department implemented a Communication Studies program. A lot of kids on campus have now been more involved with The BlueStocking over the past year. More kids have been reading our content. And we’ve been trying to get journalists who worked in the South Carolina market to come speak on campus. While we have faced a lot of challenges and there are more to overcome, I feel that there are a lot of better days ahead and we are rebuilding our newspaper in the best way possible. Success doesn’t happen overnight and I feel that if you work hard and stay positive, I think people will take notice of it and will give you a chance.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As the editor-in-chief of The BlueStocking, I do a lot of content that affects PC/Laurens County, but the thing I love the most is doing sports writing and photography. For sports writing, I’ve always been a big fan of sports growing up and I just love seeing how teams can be built for success or make decisions that haunt them for years. Being in journalism, you get to see that firsthand and that’s something I really like about it. For photography, you get to be right in the moment and capture that expression that may not be seen again. If someone catches it, they really admire it a whole bunch. For me, I’m always proud of not only producing content people may not know about, but really just the authenticity aspect of it. Because of this, I feel this is what makes me stand out compared to others.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
When I was ten years old, my parents held a Carolina Panthers-themed birthday party at Bank of America Stadium where the team played their games at. At the time, I was beginning to fall in love with sports and being there and getting to know more about the players, the stadium, and all of the franchise’s accomplishments were really special. It was a really fun day.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thebluestockingpc.org
- Instagram: @bluestockingpresby | @_mitchj2258
- Facebook: Mitchell Mercer
- Twitter: @PCBlueStocking | @_mitchmerc2258
Image Credits
©Mitchell Mercer
