Born to write: kid reporter follows her dreams

By Ella Hamilton

At 13, Sarah Liu was flipping through Sports Illustrated Kids when she stumbled across an advertisement looking for kid reporters. After submitting a hefty application of multiple essays, she was denied.

Without her parent's knowledge, she applied again. “I got an email from some editor at Sports Illustrated and it said ‘we would like your daughter to be a kid reporter,’ and I remember I was shocked,” said Stephen Liu, Sarah’s father.

Sarah’s portfolio for Sports Illustrated includes articles on subjects ranging from college football, the Olympics in Rio, and her first-person perspective of covering an NCAA basketball tournament.

Pictures online show Sarah at 13 years old interviewing professional athletes, demonstrating an admirable level of professionalism rarely observed in preteens.

But this came as no surprise to Sarah’s parents, who watched her grow up as a young academic.

Her mother, Jennie Liu, recalls that Sarah started reading when she was only 2 ½ years old, and progressed exponentially at a young age.

“I remember even before she started kindergarten she would start journaling. This was probably at age five when she started writing a little diary where she would express how she felt and she would share that with me,” said Jennie.

Throughout her schooling in Palos Verdes, California, she progressed in writing activities. She participated in an elementary journalism after-school program and later worked on her high school’s newspaper.

A turning point in her career came during her junior year of high school when a friend asked her if she wanted to join the team at Z Magazine, a student led fashion magazine. Before working for the magazine, Sarah never saw herself as a strong creative force.

When an editor posted a TikTok promoting Z Magazine, the students went viral and their creation gathered a following. “We had like international contributors and everything to it,” said Sarah.

At the same time that Sarah’s journalism career was taking off, she simultaneously pursued every opportunity available to serve the public.

During the height of the pandemic, Liu was a student board member for her community school board. Her parents watched her through Zoom as she represented the student body during a mental health crisis. Liu conducted a survey on the status of her classmates’ mental health, which received over 700 responses. Along with a partner, she recited each of the entries for an online audience of over 2,000 people.

Jennie recalls how her daughter reacted to this task, saying “I remember her coming to my room and her heart was just totally broken for her classmates because she saw their struggles and she felt it in her heart. And so as a result, she wanted to do something about that”.

Her public service extended to a student internship with California Senator Ben Allen, where she took calls from the community and organized a database of arts organizations and non-profits in her district.

As a 19-year-old Northeastern University student, Sarah now works in communications for Boston’s Department of Youth Engagement and Employment, conducting outreach via social media. “I focus on social media strategy to try and reach as many of Boston's youth as possible, and then also reach as many partner organizations as possible,” said Sarah.

In her minimal spare time, she works on graphic design for several organizations, runs and cooks. “She's very, very self-motivated. And oftentimes, she puts too much time into something that doesn't need all of her energy,” said Aidan Weinberg, Sarah’s boyfriend.

Sarah admits that finding balance is her weakness, but it doesn’t deter her from following her childhood dreams.

She adds, “Being able to be a kid reporter was definitely a very gratifying and clarifying moment for me. And the rest is history.”