A tribute to a young journalist

Remembering my student Katie Hoedt.

Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.

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(Photo via Instagram)

Kathryn Hoedt, 23, died on August 19.

The word “tragic” gets used a lot in regard to deaths, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration in Katie’s case. She died from falling more than 30 feet off a rope swing, onto jagged rocks below.

Katie had been my student in a long-form writing class at NYU, from which she graduated with her masters degree in journalism in just three semesters, at the age of 21. She went on to become a news producer at channel KCRA in California, where she was from. I wrote this remembrance as part of collection of professors’ memories that are being given to Katie’s family.

I want to share it with you because Katie was special — it’s a platitude, I know, but I would have said that before she died too. She was. And her death was tragic in the way it happened, tragic in that she was so young, but also tragic because we lost someone who had a powerful career ahead of her working for the public good.

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My heart hurts reading all of Katie’s words from my class, and after it.

I remember well the first time her face appeared on Zoom — Oh, she is just so young! I thought. I wondered what her journalism would be like with such a sweet exterior.

Katie proved my assumptions — that she was too young, too nice for this profession — wrong in every way. She stood out in class. Her work was insightful, sharp. Katie caught the nuances that make stories come to life. Her lede on her final story for our class was and is one of my favorites:

“We’re sitting at the table when I hit record, and the stalkiest of the three little blonde-haired girls stands up and declares that she is the queen and we are all her subjects. Jane Mokhova, a 24-year-old nanny for the three girls, sternly tells her in Ukrainian to quiet down and play somewhere else. Mokhova did this a few times, turning her head as if she were ashamed. When I asked Mokhova why she seemed guilty about speaking Ukrainian in front of me, she smiled almost out of embarrassment and said, ‘It’s my secret language.’”

The “stalkiest.” She smiled “out of embarrassment.” So good.

Then this, in the same story:

“In late March, Mokhova had sat staring at a wall for eight hours straight in an immigration office at the San Diego border. Every once in a while, she would hear a whimper, a sigh, or someone praying. She never expected to be here…”

It’s the little things Katie noticed and used to show us a bigger picture. The silence of staring at a wall for eight hours tells the reader so much. She was already writing powerfully when in my class. I was so excited to watch her career.

Katie and I stayed in touch after she graduated. I wrote asking about her new job(s) and she always asked me about my work. I’d mentioned wanting to return to Ukraine to report. Katie was always asking the important questions, as a great reporter does. “What is making you want to go back?” she wondered.

Then she offered to help in any way she could. Her generosity was boundless, and her empathy was beautiful.

Losing Katie deprives the rest of us of her future talent, but she was already a force while she was here, one I will never forget.

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