Bella Ross leads the way for social media journalism

Bella Ross (‘20) started her journalism career at SDSU with a passion for politics and activism. Being a freshman during the 2016 presidential election, Ross was the one leading protests around campus with a megaphone in hand. From going on to write one of the most well-known Daily Aztec stories, to now working for Voice of San Diego as a social media producer, her dedication to keeping local audiences informed is what makes her an honored social media journalist. 

Ross said that she was always drawn to politics and writing, but the political atmosphere of 2016 is what solidified her as a journalist.  

“I declared a journalism and political science double major, and I started in 2016, which is the year that Trump got elected,” Ross said. “And it was more clear than ever how important it was to me to be involved in politics, and also just the importance of media and journalism and setting the narrative straight and keeping people informed, so everything really fell into place very quickly.” 

Being new at the DA, when none of the other staff writers wanted to pick up a story on an Academic Senate meeting, Ross volunteered herself to cover it. This meeting ended up surprising everyone by being the historic vote to retire the Aztec warrior mascot, and Ross found herself writing one of the biggest stories of the year. 

“I had to grind out a story overnight, and it was on the front page,” Ross said. “I felt like it really quickly showed me you can end up very much in the middle of something, and being the authority on issues was just very interesting to me. Immediately, kind of seeing how powerful this role was, and also just exciting.”

Ross naturally began to move up as a writer in the DA, eventually making it as editor-in-chief for her senior year. Being in a leadership role gave her the opportunity to teach eager new students how to write for a newspaper, and it was one of her most impactful moments from being at SDSU.  

Writing frequent stories at the DA is what Ross said prepared her to work at the San Diego Union Tribune after graduation, where she wrote multiple articles a week as a community engagement specialist and later an audience engagement editor. 

Now, Ross has been working at VOSD as a social media producer for the past year, where she has been recently focusing on creating fun and informative videos to educate audiences about local government. 

Combining creativity and accessibility to create engaging content is something Ross said she is very passionate about. 

“I think it (making videos) also just connects to a lot of what I care about most in journalism, which is accessibility of information and democratizing information,” Ross said. “And I think the news stories and the long form stuff is super important. Somebody has to be doing all of those things. But, I feel like I see my responsibility as educating people and bridging the gap for general audiences.”

Ross said that networking and making her name known was key in propelling her journalism career. For example, Ross said she would hype herself up to go to SPJ networking events and got one her first internships at inewsource from going up to them in person and asking about their internship program. She also recalled that her Twitter persona became synonymous with her journalistic style, even catching the attention of then-editor of the San Diego Union Tribune. 

“You know, it's very easy to post regrettable things online. I think we all understand that, but I do think that part of what helped me was just being a genuine person. I feel like being able to do what I do today requires me to very much tap into my personality and be authentic. And I think that's what turns a lot of people off from mainstream media, is that it feels so inauthentic.”

Along with her journalism classes at SDSU, Ross said that joining the DA was one of the most important career decisions she made in college that helped her to hit the ground running after graduation. 

“I really encourage people to, like, don't sleep on the student newspaper,” Ross said. “I know that we have a lot of work to do, but, arguably it was the most important thing I did in college. And if everything else suffered a little bit because I was doing that, then, I think that it was okay.”