By Luke Graham

Laurel Busby

From interviewing a leading cult expert to working on nationally aired television documentaries, Laurel Busby (MA '98) has experienced a wide spectrum of journalism.

Since graduating, Busby said she was a reporter at the Palisadian-Post in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and more recently, as a free-lance researcher, she worked on the Court TV series "Trace Evidence: The Dr. Henry Lee Project."

She also said she co-produced "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism." Throughout her times in journalism, Busby said the toughest part for her has been the time commitment.

"I had to cover city or school board meetings that ran until late at night and then write stories for the next day," she said. "It was not a nine-to-five job."
Although the long hours were challenging, she said that if not for journalism she wouldn't have met a number of interesting people. Busby said journalism has also opened her mind to looking at society differently.

"It's fun to experience events or press conferences in person instead of just getting tidbits from the news," she said. "Journalism has given me a deeper understanding of the world and a greater confidence in myself."

Busby said she credits a lot of her success in journalism to what she learned at the School. She said her teachers' advice on how to write a news story have remained with her through her career.

"Bill Celis, Meg Moritz and others were influential; I trusted their judgment and recalled their advice repeatedly," she said.

Busby said she left the School confident that she could write almost any type of news story.

"Partly, that was through the classes and my security with how I had been trained, and partly it came through the internship experiences of writing so many published stories," she said.

Busby has received several honors for her work.

At the Palisadian-Post, she received a first-place award from the National Newspaper Association and a second place from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for a story about gang members who get tattoos removed as a final step to ending their involvement in that lifestyle.

"Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" won the Youth Documentary Award at the Bergen International Film Festival.

These days, she said she focuses her energies on her 4-month-old son, Terrin.

She lives with her husband, Eugene Thompson, in Los Angeles. laurelbusby@mac.com