Lynn Sweet, a political journalist, spoke at Chadbourne Residential College Tuesday about her journey to become the Washington D.C. bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Sweet attended the University of Illinois but dropped out with no future plans for her career. She later attended the University of California-Berkeley, and eventually chose to pursue journalism as a career.
After accepting a job at a newspaper in a small suburb of Chicago, Sweet covered stories ranging in topic from house fires to politics. While working, she learned the importance of asking for help after an embarrassing drive back to the office just to receive instructions on how to operate a camera.
Although the job was great experience, Sweet said it was through her promotion to the Chicago Sun-Times that she discovered her love of politics.
She began as an editorial assistant, but after two years she accepted a job as a reporter covering the Cook County government. Not knowing much about government or politics, Sweet tried to gain as much knowledge as she could by attending political events, where she said she learned a lot about the nature of politics and politicians.
\Even if someone is an official doesn't mean they're right,"" she said.
In 1993, Sweet was offered a job in Washington D.C., and despite reporting on stories from the White House to important national figures, Sweet said she still felt a strong attachment to Chicago.
""My first obligation is to report on local interests,"" she said.
Sweet discussed how she was able to write her own columns and give advice to journalism students aspiring to do the same.
Her ambition to write provoked her to voluntarily cover events and return with a story.
""This freed me, in a way, from being told what to do every minute,"" she said.
Her initiative showed others in the workplace that she was responsible from the start, which was also the advice she gave to journalism students.
UW-Madison sophomore Anna Clauss said she took a lot from Sweet's talk, especially in Sweet's focus on the more intricate aspects of her job.
""I really liked all of her personal stories about how she progressed in her career, and I thought those were really insightful,"" Clauss said.
Sweet is on campus this week as part of a writer-in-residence program, according to a UW-Madison press release, and will discuss issues on Capitol Hill later this week.
