Entering journalism school in 2012 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I quickly pivoted from being a generalist reporter to the science and technology beat, guiding student journalists in writing about the technical advancements made on campus with a comprehensive and independent tone at the Daily Illini.

I leaned on alternative story formats, collaborating with designers to develop my own stories, eventually landing a cover story on the university’s retrofit team in 2014. I was inspired to look into mechanical stories like this after a kitten fell into a hole in the register of our ductwork in my college home when a roommate’s friend visited us with her.

We went to the basement, where an old, coal-fired boiler still stood next to a modern furnace. We rolled our palms on the bottom of the ductwork, coaxing the kitten back to the register as our other roommates hung their phones in the hole to track our progress. Naturally, when we successfully retrieved her, we gave her some milk to raise her spirits.

I quickly found that the best science and technology stories aren’t found in press releases about the latest research. Rather, they’re all around us; hidden in plain view. They are deceptively mundane, but opaque in reality – necessitating the clarity of narrative and diverse sourcing. I would call upon statistics from the Facilities and Services Department, and I regularly went to the library for primary sources from the past.

I entered the public sector workforce after graduating early, first working in public media, then as a writer and videographer for the university’s supercomputing center. I would even lead tours, showing visitors a range of 3D scientific visualizations rendered on university hardware; I mostly kept clear from the supercomputing center because the fan noise would cause migraines.

In graduate school at Northwestern University, I honed skills for long-form reporting and visualization, and after graduation, I became the field editor for Prairie Farmer, the longest continually published magazine in North America, operated by the same company that runs the longest non-continually published magazine, Wallace’s Farmer in Iowa.

That both of these coveted spots are occupied by business-to-business media brands, rather than business-to-consumer brands, tells you something about the trust and staying power business-to-business publications can engender. These are publications started by farmers, for farmers, with the original issues mostly just sharing contributed content by readership. This two-way street lives on with many editors in the company involved with their respective family farms in some way.

Ag communications scholars like Jim Evans of UIUC showed during the ‘90s, when companies exercised more control over nominally independent ag media, readers and listeners tuned out. They would get more out of having a conversation in their neighbor’s barn than sanitized and overly promotional content, so that’s what they did. One of the most popular podcasts in the space is itself called “Barn Talk.” Being authentically independent and authentically involved in the industry they’re reporting on is a prerequisite for ag journalists.

Being from a family in the restaurant and hotel industry, a whole two generations removed from the field, I was one of a few exceptions at Prairie Farmer. I took the opportunity to learn as much as I could, scratching my environmental storytelling itch where possible, and eventually developed a strong enough focus in remote sensing and video work to advance my career with BNP Media.

When I came to BNP Media three years ago, I took over brands with contributors who didn’t just have field experience, they were still actively in the field. I supplement their work, making sure we cover all relevant news and editing per AP style, but everything here from story idea generation to framing new developments in context happens because we have input and buy-in from the communities we cover. It takes a village, and strong technical content reflects that.

We successfully brought the 80-year-old SNIPS NEWS publication for the sheet metal HVAC industry into ACHR NEWS, a process we are now implementing with Engineered Systems Magazine as well. Not much is changing other than the url, as the content will still be available to read as a microsite of ACHRnews.com. We look forward to sharing details on this transition soon.

As ever, we at ES are a neutral meeting ground for advancing the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) industries from the engineer’s perspective.