Former Chronicle editor joins Des Moines Business Record

For many college graduates, finding a full-time job relating to their major can be a long, stressful journey. For DMACC and Drake journalism graduate Sarah Bogaards, her college experience helped lead directly into a job as a reporter for the Des Moines Business Record.

Sarah, who graduated from DMACC in 2019, found herself wanting to branch out during her second semester. That’s when she decided to join the Ankeny campus student newspaper — The Campus Chronicle.

She began her time at the paper as a staff writer. Once the previous editor-in-chief graduated and departed from the Chronicle, Sarah took her writing career to the next level and applied to the newly opened editor position.

“It was definitely a little intimidating at first because it’s like, I’ve been doing this for one semester — am I really qualified for this?” Sarah said.

Two years later Sarah was accepted to Drake University in Des Moines, where she majored in News. After receiving a personal offering from an associate dean, Kelly Bruhn, during her first tour on the Drake campus, Sarah said she felt like she was at an institution that genuinely cared for her.

“She was giving me an overview of the program … I was telling her about different things I was excited to learn and stuff like [Associated Press] style, and she actually gave me her AP stylebook from a couple years ago,” Sarah said.

After becoming more accustomed to Drake, Sarah found her way back to the student newsroom once again — The Times-Delphic; first as a staff writer and later breaking news manager.

Sarah said working at a weekly paper like the Delphic helped her learn to work on a deadline and hone her interview skills, even though a lot of it was done remotely because of the pandemic.

Her senior year, Sarah was able to put her newspaper skills to the test in the real world when she landed an internship at The Des Moines Business Record, where she learned how to perform extensive research, deep dive into specific topics, and fact-check stories with an abundance of information.

It was during this trial run in her career that she wrote her most favored story she’s created yet — a three-part series concerning the closure of birthing units in rural areas that don’t have enough births to sustain them.

“We like to joke that it was kind of like a baby in itself because it took nine months to make it,” said Sarah.

Sarah looks back on her experience both at the Campus Chronicle and The Times-Delphic as the foundational experience she needed to push her into her career in journalism. For her, it all started right here at DMACC and has taken her to where she is now — writing full time at the Des Moines Business Record where her beat is Technology and Innovation.

“Everyone who was on the [Campus Chronicle] staff at the time — we were all learning. We were all there because we liked writing, we liked reporting, and we were all learning from each other. That’s really the main takeaway for me from my time as editor [at the Campus Chronicle],” Sarah said.