Cecilia Perry
Nothing has ever been off-limits for Cecilia Ragland Perry, who remembers, as a child, investigating everything from her brother’s love letters to the Christmas gifts hidden in the attic.
Even at a young age, Perry said, she knew she wanted to be a journalist. “I have no problem getting into people’s business,” she said.
That quality is fitting, since Perry, 26, hopes to work as a TV news anchor after graduating this year with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona.
Perry, who was raised in Raleigh, N.C., didn’t leave her hometown until 2007, when she decided to go to graduate school. Now, she says, she’s on an adventure.
“I like to go out, get the story and be around people,” Perry said.
“When I get up and go to work,” she added, “I never know what I’m going to learn that day.”
During a recent internship for the Arizona Daily Star, for instance, Perry once spent a Saturday night in the lone bar still open in South Tucson, a one-square-mile city formerly overwhelmed by the business of nightlife. On other days, she was covering difficult issues like homelessness.
She says that she sees the power in print, but that she’s more drawn to communicating the raw and emotional tone of each news story through the camera.
“As an anchor you have a chance to connect and engage” with the audience, she said.
In Arizona, Perry, who is married, juggles her love for reporting with her commitment to her husband and her work with at-risk youth as an educator for Wright Flight, a local organization that tries to keep kids away from drugs.
Moving forward, she plans to concentrate on examining complex issues in reporting. Her thesis project is about the ethics behind embed journalism in Iraq.
“I want to be conscious and respectful but also get the story,” she said.
A version of this article appeared in print on page 14 of the Tucson 2010 edition of The New York Times Student Journalism Institute.