Shortly after graduating from Yale, NYT best-selling author Jeff Hobbs wrote a novel, which he says he was lucky to get published but “I don’t recommend that book to anyone.” Then he found his true calling in what is called “Immersion journalism,” where the writer immerses himself in a situation and tells the story from the inside, rather than simply as an observer.
For “Show Them You’re Good: A Portrait of Boys in the City of Angels the Year Before College,” Hobbs immersed himself in two high schools on opposite sides of LA’s socio-economic divide. He spends the year really getting to know a handful of boys who are trying to get into college; in some cases as the first in their family to go to college. He lays bare the difficult decisions they have to make and the obstacles they face, focusing on the commonality despite individual circumstances.
For “Show Them You’re Good: A Portrait of Boys in the City of Angels the Year Before College,” Hobbs immersed himself in two high schools on opposite sides of LA’s socio-economic divide. He spends the year really getting to know a handful of boys who are trying to get into college; in some cases as the first in their family to go to college. He lays bare the difficult decisions they have to make and the obstacles they face, focusing on the commonality despite individual circumstances.
The hope is just that if you get to know people… you feel more, then you’ll want to know more, then you can do more.
We can all learn from one another, if we just open our ears and listen more than we talk.
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