Jackson Free Press

Jackson Free Press contributing editor Casey Parks got a delightful shock last week when New York Times columnist Nick Kristof called to offer her a coveted slot as his "traveling companion" on a 10-day trip to Africa—to New Guinea, Cameroon and the Central Africa Republic—this fall. Parks came out on top of 3,800 applications by other college and graduate-school students around the country.

"YOWZERS," she wrote on the JFP Web site Monday night after the announcement went public. "I don't even know what to do with myself."

On the trip, Parks will blog about what she observes for the New York Times Web site, as well as file video blogs for MTV, which is also going to document the reporting trip. Parks said her experience working with the JFP blog helped her earn the spot. Until December, Parks was the JFP assistant editor, a position she quickly earned after joining the paper as an intern. She graduated from Millsaps College in 2005.

Parks' application essay was published in The New York Times Monday. In it, she told Kristof that she had never traveled abroad—but desperately wanted to. "Growing up poor, I saw my mother skip meals. I saw my father pawn everything he loved. I saw our cars repossessed. I never saw France or London. I didn't even see an airplane up close until I was a senior in high school and won an Al Neuharth-sponsored trip," she began.

She wrote about the experiences she had gained in Mississippi as a young journalist: "Crafting racially charged stories, I saw myself in the eyes of interviewed after interviewed. No, I didn't know what it was like to be perceived as scary because my melanin shaded me darker. But I knew what it was like to wear out-of-style clothes and want the shoes and cooler lunches that others had. As a lesbian, I knew what it was like to feel out of place."

Parks spoke of great journalism and why she wants to do it, too. "I have a distinct want (it's a thirst and a flame, all at once) to create these stories myself—not for the Pulitzers, but for the reaching outside of myself, to break people's hearts so adeptly that they move into action."

With a camera poised on him—the video is available online—Kristof called to offer Parks the gig. "Are you serious?" she answered. "Yes," he said with a laugh.

In his column Tuesday, he announced the winner, imploring other young people to take challenge and see the world, too. And not just the safe world, he said.

Parks will soon be returning to Jackson, which she listed on the New York Times Web site as her hometown, to complete a long-form narrative story for the JFP. She then will spend the summer preparing for her rough-and-tumble African journey, getting shots and taking other precautions.