Kendall Polidori, a senior at Columbia College in Chicago, is pictured here during a political
journalism conference in 2019 in Greenwich Village in New York City. (Photo provided)

 

Polidori uses music to manage anxiety surrounding new role, managing from a distance

By CHRISTOPHER HEIMERMAN
For Illinois Press Association

CHICAGO – As the ceiling fan whirred, Kendall Polidori lay on her back on her hardwood bedroom floor and let the soothing sounds of Duke Ellington wrap around her like a blanket.

Countless times since the pandemic began, the 21-year-old Columbia College senior found herself in that supine position, self-medicating with the debut from indie-pop upstart Beebadoobee, her favorite album of 2020, Phoebe Bridgers’ “Punisher”, and of course the unmistakable jazz stylings of “Duke”.

“Super-soothing. I’ve been literally putting his stuff on shuffle,” she said. “Just trying to unwind and be in my own presence.”

An old soul, Polidori listens to the albums front to back, from the drop of the needle at the edge until the empty scratchiness after the last track has played, her back aching, but her soul at ease.

“I straight lay on my back, on the hardwood floor, and it’s not comfortable,” she said, laughing. “I just sit and put the ceiling fan on low and watch it as it spins.”

Music vibrates like a tuning fork at Polidori’s core, and its ethereal pull has guided her through the lightning storm of anxiety that thundered into the world in March, and then intensified when Polidori and Mari Devereaux, also 21, became co-editors of the Columbia Chronicle early this fall semester.

On the eve of the first presidential election in which Polidori has voted, let alone covered, she turned to her old friend, music, for a pressure release, as she wrote a column about the perseverance of Chicago musicians during the pandemic.

“Behind the intersecting political discord and a health crisis plaguing the nation, there is one thing that can offer even the slightest glimpse of hope: music. … Music is a microcosm of human decency displayed during difficult circumstances and, politics aside, it is important to sustain communities when the government does not.”

 

Widespread Panic

In 2 years with the Chronicle, Polidori has covered a vast array of topics, from the full-throat celebration of Lollapalooza to the most polarizing modern election to another issue fraught with tension: Title IX.

The federal civil rights law provides protections against sex discrimination, but universities’ offices have come under fire for mishandling investigations, or simply conducting them so everything appears above-board.

So as Polidori delved into the topic, her heart raced when she picked up the phone to interview lawyers.

“I thought they were totally going to school me,” she said. “I didn’t want to ask something and sound dumb, or misword something.”

She learned to swallow both her pride and her anxiety, as she adopted a simple-yet-effective trick: honesty. She’ll readily admit to a source when she doesn’t understand the topic, then asks for them to break it down and explain it.

“I’ve found that people are actually more helpful with student journalists,” she said.

People from all walks of life can appreciate the crippling anxiety Polidori broke through.

“Any assignment I have, no matter how many times you’ve done that, because I struggle with anxiety, that’s definitely hard,” she said. “You overthink it, and all the ways you’re going to talk to the person. Once you actually do it, you’re in the flow, and you wonder what you were worried about.”

Travis Truitt, Columbia College’s general manager of student media and a 2009 alumnus, said that anxiety speaks to Polidori’s strength.

“You don’t get anxious or nervous if you don’t care,” Truitt said. “If you’re a musician, to touch on Kendall’s favorite topic, you’re going to feel anxiety – even if you’re a professional performing on the Grammys. She wants to put out the best version of herself and a good story. She wants to seem credible to the sources she’s reaching out to.”

He said channeling anxiety is a life skill Polidori is developing fast. He caught glimpses of her gumption before she set foot on campus. Polidori spent her first three semesters of college at Grand Valley State in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She’s originally from Streamwood, and she wanted a more hands-on experience than she was getting at Grand Valley State. So she looked up Truitt and called him directly.

“That’s not something a lot of students do,” he said. “They don’t start the process of wanting to work for us prematurely.”

Being an empath allows Polidori to emote compassion and sympathy to victims of discrimination and abuse – many of whom, because of the pandemic, have had to sit through hearings – with their assailants in attendance.

“It’s very traumatizing,” she said. “Students may not even be on campus, and they may not be in a safe place to be on a Zoom call and to talk about what’s happened to them.”

Polidori takes the decision on whether to keep a source anonymous very seriously.

“We have a very long conversation,” she said. “You want to have that person’s name with it, and attach that to the story. But if a person feels in danger, or that there are risks, we want to be conscious of that.”

Whether it be pulling back the curtain and admitting to a source she has a blind spot, or making decisions with great consequence, Polidori knows she’ll always be learning.

“I feel very confident in my role as a journalist now, but it’s something I’ve learned in time,” Polidori said, “and I have a long way to go.”

 

Guided by Voices

There’s this misconception that anxious people don’t enjoy communicating. The reality is quite the opposite. It’s the just the whole starting-the-conversation thing that’s a barrier.

Once Polidori gets people talking, her heart sings.

“That’s my whole thing is amplifying voices,” she said. “That’s my favorite part of journalism.”

She said managing staff, which includes students with little to no experience or even just a passing fancy in journalism, is a challenge.

“It’s difficult to build rapport with somebody through a Zoom meeting,” she said. “I love communication and checking in on people.”

Polidori also makes it a point to check in on herself.

“I’m home all day, so I might as well work all day. It’s so dangerous,” she said. “I was putting in a crazy amount of hours to begin with, before the pandemic. The news cycle was crazy to begin with. It’s never-ending.”

Safety is first and foremost, Polidori said, whether it comes to making sure staffers are doing all they can to be safe from the coronavirus, or that they’re in a healthy headspace to take on an assignment.

While she’s been in a newsroom only during her college life, it’s tough to fight back the reflex to go and get the story, to knock on an administrator’s office door when they’re unresponsive.

“Having to rely on a phone call is the worst thing in the world,” she said.

Despite the barriers, Truitt marvels at the Chronicle’s accomplishments.

 

The National (award)

Early in the pandemic, college administrators were trying to hit a moving target as they tracked the virus’ spread and announced mitigation policies.

In the process, similar to their colleagues coast-to-coast, they either missed the elusive targets or put out information that sent ripples of confusion through the student body.

What was the timing, and the extent of the latest closure? Which classes were canceled altogether, and which were going online? Columbia is an arts and media college, so would dance, theater, and music groups ever be able to meet, and when?

“People were asking whether they should resume shooting film for their thesis project,” Truitt said. “Everyone wanted to know, for the cost of tuition, am I going to be getting my money’s worth?”

The cavalry arrived, in the form of the Chronicle.

Polidori, Devereaux, and their team burned up the phone lines to get the straightest answers they could, and then put them into simple, easy-to-digest, constantly updating stories.

“A lot of people around the college started saying the Chronicle was must-read, and Kendall had a lot to do with that,” Truitt said. “They were asking the right people the right questions to get more clarity. The Chronicle has not only not skipped a beat, but we’ve grown better and more vital.”

Polidori (shown left, Columbia College's broadcast studio) and Ignacio Calderon, the Chronicle’s senior video editor, found ways to tell stories visually without putting either staff or sources at risk.

They went to every bathroom near the Chronicle office and tested the sinks by pushing the button to see just how long the water would run – given that the Centers for Disease Control urged people to wash their hands frequently, for at least 20 seconds.

The water ran about 3 or 4 seconds then stopped, prompting the user to push the button – again and again. The duo contacted college and administrators and experts and published an invaluable Public Service Announcement and what turned out to be an agent of change. The college replaced all its sinks with touchless faucets shortly thereafter.

The story also won a fourth-place national award from the Associated Collegiate Press.

 

Seeking ‘Masterpieces’

One of the hardest parts of journalism is not getting too close to a subject, finding ways to share your personality, all while also being able to detach yourself.

Music was Polidori’s way to tie all of those concepts together.

“I found a way to incorporate that into my work as a journalist,” she said. “I’ve found ways to geek out about music with people while writing about it at the same time.”

Before, those opportunities were more obvious. She’s covered Lollapalooza multiple times.

Whether on assignment or in her free time, she’d attend a few shows each week.

“I miss live music so much,” she said. “That was everything to me. It’s been such a weird past few months without that.”

The pandemic has also provided opportunities to write about music outside the adrenaline and intangible effect of a live concert.

The Chronicle has covered the arts exhaustively – from the Paint the City Project to virtual drag shows. Naturally, it’s devoted plenty of coverage to the music scene, including hyper-local coverage of collaborations that have kept record stores and bands afloat, and the widespread impact of the national Save Our Stages Act that, if it weren’t hung up in Congress as part of the HEROES Act, would provide a $10 billion boost to live music venues affected by the pandemic.

“[Reporting on music] has more depth to it,” she said. “You’re not just reporting on an artist’s album or reviewing a live show. We get to tell more personal stories that we would have without the pandemic.”

Polidori has done plenty of self-exploration this year. Even her taste in music has gone through something of a metamorphosis, as she’s gravitated toward folk, blues and soul. 

When told Taylor Swift had pivoted to folk in her latest album, “folklore”, Polidori said she’d maybe listen to it.

Maybe.

“I’ve never really listened to Taylor Swift, and when something is overhyped, I … I like to discover things for myself,” she said.

With literally hundreds of recordings featuring “Sir Duke”, she need not be in a hurry.