United States
For my fellowship at The Tempest, I wrote a couple of articles each week (on a good week – there were periods where I had to take a lighter load due to health issues). Every three weeks, we were assigned to a new vertical. During my time there, I was assigned to the following verticals: Tech + Money, Love and Health, Life, Pop Culture, and News. Below are my ten favorite articles that I wrote at The Tempest. You can read all of my articles that I wrote at The Tempest (including ones that I wrote more recently as a staff writer) here: https://thetempest.co/author/juliametraux/
While I enjoyed my time at The Tempest, an issue for me (which I brought up at times) was the unpaid labor aspect of it. It's a lot to write three to four articles per week if you have a lot on your plate – which, for me, included an (unpaid) internship at The Mighty, an active autoimmune disease, and being a full time student. In journalism in general, I feel that it's accepted to work "for exposure" rather than to be paid for your work, so I think it's a broken system – not something unique that The Tempest is doing.
Despite this, I still enjoyed this opportunity. I had the privilege to get more clips from a successful website and had the flexibility to write about what I wanted – which included topics that may not be the most mainstream. I was promoted to a staff writer at the end of my fellowship, which is paid (albeit $10 an article).
This was the last article I wrote during my fellowship – and I chose to write it on this topic out of frustration that the fellowship was unpaid.
Eating disorders are a serious issue, and it's terrible to constantly see how poorly the media covers them. I pointed out specific areas in which the media can do a better job.
I was annoyed when I heard Jude Law's comments about how he thinks its a shame that his film with Woody Allen got shelved. So, I decided to write about it.
I have been and continued to be slut-shammed throughout most of my life. I chose to write this piece as part of taking the power back from people who try to shame me for how I look.
I wanted to explore my relationship with my dad, so that's why I chose to write this article.
This is an issue that hits very much close to home. My fear of being doxxed definitely impacted how public I made my pro-Palestinian advocacy while I was at McGill. I interviewed people who were doxxed on Canary Mission and explored the troublesome aspects of that site/group as part of this reported piece.
In high school, after the Sandy Hook shooting, one of my biggest fears was that my school would be next. I was not alone, and some people are looking for solutions for safety (unfortunately this does not include gun control measures). Facial recognition isn't the answer and has very racist implications.
I wrote this piece during a rough autoimmune disease flare. I was feeling extremely down and had to think of ways to take care of myself. From there, this piece was born.
During my fellowship, I was first assigned to the Tech + Money vertical. I'm not really a tech-y person, so I wasn't sure what to write. I do care a lot about social justice issues and have felt unsafe on social media as someone who is Jewish at times (thanks to Nazis on Twitter), so that's why I chose to write this piece.
I wrote this article as a personal response on the #WhyIDidntReport hashtag that went viral during Brett Kavanaugh's US Supreme Court confirmation hearings. My last university actually threatened to sue The Tempest over this, but I had evidence to back up what I said.