This year, Lookout Santa Cruz, a local online news outlet in Santa Cruz with only 14 employees, including general-assignment correspondent and Occidental alumni Max Chun ’19, won journalism’s most coveted award — the Pulitzer Prize — for Breaking News Reporting.
Chun said winning a Pulitzer only five years after completing his undergraduate degree was no easy feat and that during college, he had no idea news reporting would be his career.
“I didn’t really get into journalism until midway through my time [at Occidental],” Chun said. “I was studying politics and wasn’t super set on what I was planning to do after.”
Chun said that before journalism, he had an internship at a documentary film company called Brave New Films, where he worked alongside researchers. According to Chun, his experience at his internship prompted him to enroll in journalism classes at Occidental.
“[Journalism class] was hard, and it was very foreign to me. As I went through it, [my reporting] got a little better every time,” Chun said. “I had a professor, his name is Bob Sipchen. I felt like he did a really good job of making journalism engaging and difficult while also being understanding.”
Visiting Full Professor of the College Writing Program Bob Sipchen, who also serves as a Senior Editor for the LA Times and has been a part of three different Pulitzer-winning teams, said he remembers Chun as an attentive student.
“[Chun] did a really good job,” Sipchen said. “He was really thorough in his research and reporting, and he took it very seriously.”
Sipchen said he once used Chun’s research project as an example for a later class.
“I pulled out [Chun’s] source material that he sent as part of that assignment, and I used it,” Sipchen said. “I put it up on the big screen in Library 3 and used it to overwhelm my introduction students with just how comprehensive it was.”
According to Chun, Sipchen’s journalism class at Occidental was one of his biggest inspirations when it came to pursuing reporting as a career.
“[Sipchen’s class] was the turning point,” Chun said. “Those classes were a really big influence on where I am now and how I got into writing for Lookout.”
Director of Alumni and Parent Engagement Dana Brandsey ’02 said she is proud that an Occidental education helped someone excel.
“[It’s] really exciting, and it definitely brings honor to the place that I went to school at,” Brandsey said. “I think it shows a lot of potential for what other people can go on to do after their time at Oxy.”
According to Chun, after graduating from Occidental in 2019, Chun moved back to his hometown where he worked at a coffee shop, and shortly after, he began freelance writing for Lookout Santa Cruz. Chun said he became an official staff writer in Feb. 2022 while continuing his job as supervisor of a cafe and became a full-time employee at Lookout in early 2023.
According to Pulitzer’s timeline of the award-winning stories by Lookout, in late Dec. of 2022 and early Jan. of 2023, a series of storms hit Santa Cruz, knocking out power lines. Chun said these storms highlighted some of the poor infrastructure in the city. According to Chun, he and the Lookout staff went all over the county to report on how the weather affected different areas, sending real-time text updates, talking to meteorologists and releasing stories by the hour.
Chun said that the feeling of winning the Pulitzer is hard to describe because it seemed so surreal. He said that his team jokes about the fact that they won so early on — Lookout was founded in 2019, so they wonder what’s left to do now that they’ve already achieved this level of success.
“It’s really just an affirmation that we did our job to the best of our abilities and really made a difference,” Chun said. “And it felt like what we’re doing is really worthwhile. We’re really providing something for our community.”
Chun said the research aspect of journalism can be an uncomfortable thing, but that it is nonetheless extremely valuable to put yourself in those situations if you want to improve as a reporter. Being confident is not easy, Chun said, but reporting on topics that interest you makes the process more approachable.
“Write about what you know,” Chun said. “Write about what you’re interested in. You will enjoy it more. You will learn more about it. And it’s a great place to start.”
According to Chun, someone’s college experience can be life-changing if they take advantage of every opportunity. He said that classes and internships through Occidental led him to where he is today, combined with hard work and dedication.
“You really just have to get yourself out there and go to community events,” Chun said. “Anything that interests you — just go [to] those, talk to people there, even if it’s not for a story. Connect with people, see what they’re like. See what people are talking about.”
Contact Mia Bracco at bracco@oxy.edu
