Lucy Tobier started her own newspaper at age 9. The circulation was her street.

“It was very limited in coverage area,” she recalled. “It was just 20 houses.” The price of a Murray Avenue Times was $1 per week, $10 for the year.

Brian Nelson began his broadcast-inspired classwide show in the fifth grade, when according to him, he was “quite the talker.” As he matured, he became a more avid and invested listener, and his passion for journalism was born.

Nelson and Tobier, are interns at the Local this summer and their bylines have been scattered throughout our pages over the last several weeks. I had the opportunity to interview them for this month’s installment of “A Local Lens,” a monthly radio show I host out of G-Town Radio, in which I discuss all things local news.

Speaking with Tobier and Nelson offered a rare opportunity to gain a glimpse into the future of the industry, one they will officially be entering next summer, after graduation.

Nelson is a journalism major and rising senior at Temple University who came to the Local through a collaboration between the Pennsylvania News Media Association and NABJ Philly. That partnership puts journalists of color into newsrooms throughout the state.

Tobier’s position at the Local was funded through grants from Swarthmore College, where she is a rising senior and will be next semester’s editor-in-chief of the school’s independent student newspaper, the Phoenix. Tobier is an economics and English literature major. 

Upon arriving at the Local, they were immediately thrust into the deep end of the reporting ocean. They discussed their experiences on air, including some of their more significant journalistic endeavors.

“I just finished [a project] about SEPTA's impact on seniors,” Tobier said. “How seniors in the area would be impacted if SEPTA got cut, especially healthcare, groceries, community. ... I'm working on another one right now about groups in the community that are helping to resettle refugees after their funding got cut. It's a lot of stories where I'm talking to individuals that are part of these organizations. I'm learning how to reach organizations, and how to go around these networks and build trust within communities.”

Tobier pitched the SEPTA and refugee resettlement stories to Interim Editor Wendy Rosenfield and said she generates story ideas “by thinking about what's going on on a city, state, or national level. And then how do I zoom in on that? What are the specific northwest groups or what are the specific demographics that are being impacted by this that no one's really talked about?”

Meanwhile, Nelson said he’s “been doing a little bit of everything.” Since coming to the Local, he’s worked on the crime report, calendar, a story about goats masquerading as spiders, a bank robbery, and more.

Nelson described his current passion project as “a history of Northwest Philadelphia, specifically Germantown, Mount Airy, and Chestnut Hill.”

“I like to be immersed in the community that I'm covering,” he added.

He shared that, since being at the Local, he’s had the opportunity to try writing features, a new skill that he’s added to his journalistic toolkit. 

“I recently did a feature on Robert Woodward and his Peanut Butter Gallery. That was the first feature I did, and it kind of sparked my realization that I love doing features. I like being personal … diving deeper and asking more questions. I felt like that really opened my eyes to my love of features.”

Plus, Nelson has been practicing his photojournalism skills, which will come in handy considering that next year, he’ll be the photo editor for Temple News.

Nelson said he was excited to be placed at the Local because he feels “very immersed in the community.” And Tobier shared that she wants to spend her professional career at a local newspaper because “I think that [journalism has] the most impact locally because those are the stories that aren't gonna be covered unless a local journalist is there. With national news, you know, like a million journalists [might be] covering the same press conference. But local stories would be lost without a community paper.”

In many ways, this community paper will feel lost when Tobier and Nelson return to their respective schools in the fall. To hear their full interview, go to chestnuthilllocal.com and click “A Local Lens.” And be sure to scour the paper for their bylines. If you’d like to send either of them a message, please email me and I will forward your messages along.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “A Local Lens” August 8 at 9 a.m. on 92.9 FM or Gtownradio.com.

Daralyse Lyons can be reached at Daralyse@chestnuthilllocal.com.