Julia Mueller is a reporter and journalist covering politics, policy and more in Washington, D.C. She reported on the 2024 elections, the Biden administration, and now covers the second Trump administration. After receiving her Bachelor's at the University of Oregon she graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School, where she earned her Master’s of journalism and specialized in politics, policy and foreign affairs. She was awarded a White House Correspondents’ Association scholarship and the Harrington Award for Subject Depth Reporting. Her work has been published in The Hill, USA Today and United Press International and contributes to several other newspapers across the country including the Tampa Bay Times and the Wisconsin State Journal.
Next Generation Leaders celebrates the achievements of young alumni of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. In this episode, we talked to Julia Mueller, a political reporter and journalist who has contributed to several publications around the country. Mueller received her Bachelor's degree at the University of Oregon before attending Northwestern University's Medill School's Masters Program, where she specialized in politics, policy, and foreign affairs. Julia detailed her day-to-day responsibilities, including covering breaking news and enterprise stories, and emphasized the importance of social media in her work. She shared insights on maintaining objectivity, managing personal information, the value of networking and attending grad school, and discussed the fulfillment she gets from uncovering significant stories in her work.
Find Julia Mueller Online
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White House Correspondence Association
Show Notes
01:24: Introduction
03:56: A day in the life at The Hill
06:01: Balancing Enterprise and Breaking News
7:19: The role of social media in modern journalism
11:09: Personal privacy ub the digital age
13:52: Grad school considerations
15:29: Personal biases and social media
19:27: Day to day and workplace environment
20:46: Working at the White House
22:23: Advice for early career journalists
24:13: Fulfilling work
25:58: Skills and mindsets to develop outside of school
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Damian Radcliffe 00:00
Hello and welcome to the next generation leaders podcast. In this series, we talk to young alumni from or associated with the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. Many of these conversations took place in the classroom or on Zoom. So don't worry if you hear the occasional door closing or questions are slightly off mic, the insights from our young alumni will more than make up for it. In this episode, we talk to Julia Mueller, a political journalist based in Washington, DC. Our conversation, which was recorded in the spring, explored Julia's work covering campaigns and the White House for the hill. She reported on the 2024 elections and the Biden presidency, and now covers the second Trump administration. After doing her undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon, she earned her master's at Northwestern University's Medill School, where she specialized in politics, policy and foreign affairs. There, she was awarded a White House Correspondents Association scholarship and the Harrington award for subject depth reporting. Her work has been published in The Hill USA Today United Press International, and she has also served as a correspondent for several regional papers across the country, including the Tampa Bay Times and the Wisconsin State Journal. In this discussion, we dive into the realities of political reporting grad school and much, much more so, yeah, tell us about how you got from the sojc to living and working in Washington, DC.
Julia Mueller01:29
Yeah, of course. Well, hello everyone, and thank you for having me. It is great to be back virtually at the sojc Go Ducks, and thank you for that introduction. Like I said, I'm like, You said I'm a politics reporter at the hill. But backstory on me, I graduated from Uo sojc in 2020, so I was a pandemic grad. Great times. I studied journalism and I was with the Clark Honors College, and then I minored in French, English and creative writing. If you want my whole resume, I took a gap year after graduating Uo during the pandemic, and I did a variety of things, one of which was I came back and coached the UO mock trial team, which I was a part of all throughout undergrad. Did a variety of like tutoring and things like that, and I also published a book I worked alongside so JC Professor Peter Laufer shout out to work on a project with him and a number of my so JC fellow classmates. I was managing editor and co author of that book that we started during school and then finished right or published right after graduation. After my gap year, I did a master's in journalism at Northwestern University. I had a specialization in politics, policy and foreign affairs reporting at their DC campus. And while I was in my grad program, I got to get a lot of experience doing dc specific reporting, you know, learning how to cover Capitol Hill or cover the Supreme Court or the Pentagon. I was a White House Correspondents Association scholar, and got to meet a lot of really cool journalists that I looked up to and look up to and also, while I was in grad school, I started an internship with the Hill, which is where I work now. I shortly after getting my masters, I went back to the hill after having interned there, and I started as a full time breaking news reporter. I was on the breaking news desk for about a year, until in 2023 I started the job I have now, which is politics reporter covering the White House and campaigns. And that's me.
Damian Radcliffe 03:50
That's That's fantastic. That's a great overview, and probably already triggers lots of questions. But can you tell us a little bit about what does the day to day look like for you in your current role. And I'd love to also unpack what day to day looks like in breaking news too, because I appreciate they're two very different things.
Julia Mueller04:07
Yeah, definitely. So nowadays, in my my politics role, I cover breaking news as it comes out, but I also work on a few different longer enterprise stories on any given week, I am a, I should say I'm a print and digital reporter. So I write for our website and then also for a print newspaper that we publish in the in the district or the DC area. And what that looks like is talking to sources in and out of DC, keeping tabs on, you know, trends and what people are talking about, sort of diving in and, like, pulling together explainers about whatever the administration is up to, and, you know, following campaigns and candidates and elections along the way, sort of on both beats and at their intersection.
Damian Radcliffe 04:59
Yeah. Great. Just put up your crack profile so folks can see some examples of some of your recent work. According to this, you've written 34,000 articles. Is that right?
Julia Mueller05:09
I think that number is inflated. Sometimes, when I was on breaking news, especially, it would get co published to some of like our affiliates. So I'm sure some of them are in there, like 10 extra times. But certainly when I was on breaking news to your breaking news question, I would be doing sometimes, you know, anywhere from six to a dozen stories a day, very fast turnaround. You know, jump on breaking news. My publication is focused on politics and policy. So it, you know, it already has sort of a, you know, subject limit on that, right, but it will be covering anything that was happening on any given moment while you were on the desk. And so I think in my year on breaking news, I had almost 2000 stories total. So not, not 34k but certainly a quite a few,
Damian Radcliffe 06:00
yeah, that is a big step change for a lot of students going who might be writing, you know, six pieces in a term, and you're doing that a day. So how do you make that adjustment?
Julia Mueller06:12
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely like something that, you know, this sounds like a cliche, but like, once you get in the ringer and you get some practice doing it, it becomes easier, and you figure out, you know, what works for you in terms of, you know, maybe you have things pre written, or you have, you know, notes that help you along, or you just get in the habit of pulling things together on our breaking news stories. Of course, they're much quicker, you know, they're they're very to the point you want to add some context. You want to add the details that your readers need to know, but you know, they're less involved often than you know, talking and interviewing someone for a few hours that you might that kind of work that you might put into an enterprise story, right? So that that also, you know, to be clear on breaking news, we weren't having to pull together a dozen deep, deep enterprise stories on a day that would probably be impossible.
Damian Radcliffe 07:02
I think, obviously, that's one of the big shifts that we've seen with the rise of digital journalism, is the speed, the immediacy, the need to get breaking stories out incredibly quickly, rather than waiting for the print run the next the next day and so forth. Can you say a little bit about the role that social media plays in that for you, both in terms of distributing stories, but also finding and monitoring what's going on.
Julia Mueller07:30
Yeah, definitely. And I should say, I sometimes say I wish that I was like in the journalism era that was typewriters and landlines, but I'm a romantic So, but social media is is super important to the work that we do. Like you say, not just in obviously, you can post your own stories. You can elevate yourself, and, you know, broadcast what you cover, and then, you know, elevate the work that you do. But it's also just a key place, first of all, where some of these newsmaker people make their news, right so in the work that I do, lawmakers the president, lots of people who are key to our stories will sometimes make their announcements, or at least post reactions or commentary, or, you know, even campaign launches on social media before they even get to, you know, sending out a press release, or before you know, they get to maybe more traditional channels of sharing that, and that speaks to, you know, as you say, sort of this changing landscape of like with breaking news, everything is getting faster and faster, and you want to have things out quickly. And a lot of times, breaking news is trying to match the pace of what's how, you know, how fast people are posting on on social media platforms, but with adding that necessary context and stuff that's important to, you know, making the story, or put it, positioning the story, like Against this Background, right? I think social media can also be huge for finding sources. It's a way to keep tabs on like, what people are talking about, what's grabbing attention, what are people retweeting, what stories are of interest to people. And then through that, you can also see, you know, what people are really interested in talking about this who has really strong opinions. Maybe I'll reach out to them. And then on the flip of course, if you're posting about it, if you're sharing your stories and you're sort of broadcasting, look, I cover these two beats, then people can also find you. Maybe if they want to reach out with their insights or scoops or what have you,
Damian Radcliffe 09:38
are there particular platforms that are most useful for you as part of your day to day?
Julia Mueller09:44
Yeah, I think so many lawmakers and politicos use Twitter or, I guess we should say x now the president likes to use his truth social platform. That's another big example of sometimes. We will get you know hints or notices about Trump's moves or his policies on his social media before we hear officially about, you know what, what His conversation was with whatever foreign leader or all of that. So in politics, got to keep an eye on Trump's true social platform. But I think Twitter slash x is a big one. And then LinkedIn as well. You know, not to it's a less popular one, of course, but, or less obvious, maybe. But I think, you know, a lot of people will share, you know, what areas they're interested in there. And I think especially for for journalists to having a nice, clean LinkedIn profile for yourself that clearly communicates what you cover can again, be helpful in that two way street of you, finding sources and them, but them also finding you credible, or even finding you themselves, right?
Damian Radcliffe 10:53
I'm so glad you said that, because students have just done an assignment about LinkedIn and elevating their LinkedIn profiles. But we've also did an assignment prior to that where we were looking at our digital footprint, and students did the New York Times' doxing training. Obviously, you know you are in a climate that and a city that where there's a lot going on and covering the kind of topics you do, I suspect you may potentially be the target for some negativity towards mainstream media and journalism. Can you say a little bit about how you manage that, how you navigate sort of personal and private, the ability to switch off, keep certain information private, and so forth? I think that would be really interesting to hear your perspective on.
Julia Mueller11:37
Yeah, well, I should say something that I'm really glad that, you know, as early as my so GC professors, and then again, my professors in my grad program were, you know, sort of reminding me is that if you do go into journalism broadly, but then, you know, national journalism and then political journalism, it does enter sort of a complex landscape, Like like you describe. And so they kind of encouraged, you know, keep tabs early on your social media. And you know, of course, on one hand, you want to make sure that, you know, as a journalist, you it's, it's clear that you can approach things in an unbiased way and be objective. And so there's, there's that element, when talking about, you know, making sure that your profile is put together. But then there's also, you know, privacy concerns. That's something that I think about a lot, is, you know, you want to balance being a professional and being personable, and like showing your readers you're a real person, and you can certainly have elements of you know, your life and what you like out on your various social media platforms, but you want to be careful with certain other things and information that you share. You know, you don't want to be necessarily broadcasting your live location in at certain moments, right? And I think that that's something you know, especially in this landscape we're in right now, or this, you know, time where there's a lot of contention or, you know, over the press, and then the role of the press and a lot of scrutiny there, that's also certainly something to to keep an eye on. People love to comment on the news, I should say, when I was on the breaking news desk, especially when we were doing so many stories and just putting content out so often, you know, we would get some very interesting emails and comments from and Twitter tags from people that you wouldn't expect to reach out to you. And so, yeah, I think, I think finding that balance of, yeah, I'm a real person. I want to share my life on the internet. And, you know, be personable as well, but you also want to be Be careful with you know, how you present yourself and what information you're sharing about yourself. I should say,
Damian Radcliffe 13:52
just want to go back to something you mentioned at the beginning, which was after the sojc and your year off, you went to grad school. Most of the folks in this room, a lot of folks in this room are seniors, maybe thinking about that, what for you were the pros and cons of grad school?
Julia Mueller14:08
So I did. Obviously, I studied journalism at the sojc, and so I, you know, I knew how to write some articles, of course, but it was a combo for me, of also was kind of a fraught time in the pandemic, but I also knew that I wanted to get to DC, or the DC area, and do political reporting, Foreign Affairs reporting, and so I, you know, luckily, was able to use my grad program. And you know, there find this program with a DC campus that has a focus on just those things to sort of help me get over there and then get, you know, the groundwork, like I was mentioning earlier, and learn sort of the ropes of of DC reporting. And I think that that can be true whether or not you are interested in political reporting. I think a grad program with a. A focus and or, you know, some sort of alignment with the topic you want to cover, or that the thing you want to do, or the place even that you want to be, can be a really helpful stepping stone there I learned so much, like hands on stuff, you know, in the DC space, that was really helpful to getting me to where I am now.
Speaker 115:23
You have my dream job that I want to be in DC so bad, so I'm psyched about this. How important is it to have social media presence that maybe doesn't portray your like political leanings versus like letting that be and like being yourself and just letting your work speak for itself, is like good journalistic reporting?
Julia Mueller15:47
Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think that it probably depends a little bit on, particularly, what what job you get, or what type of you know, journalism that you go into. There's so many different, you know, varieties and different, you know, things that are more like commentary and things that are more like, you know, objective breaking news type, type stuff. So, you know, there's a lot of factors I think that go into it. I think generally, like, like I was saying, of course, you want to be true to yourself at any point, but I think it's important, in my view, to make it clear through your social media that you can, that you are or that you approach your stories in an objective way, right, that you approach your stories wanting to hear both sides of an argument. I don't think there's like a hard and fast rule of what you can and cannot share. But I think generally, it's really important to, you know, if you're, for example, if you were going to cover the Republican National Convention, but you had just posted a bunch of things about, you know, how much you supported the Democratic National Convention, that might harm your credibility whenever you try to reach people and interview people at the Republican Convention. That's like a weird hypothetical, but you see what I mean, maybe, of when you're talking to sources, you want them to be able to look at your profile and say, This is a person who can approach this story without bias, can hear out both sides, and can create a fair piece of reporting. And so I you know no specific rules of what you post. And maybe that sounds a little vague, but I think it's important that your your profile conveys that truth about yourself, that you can approach things in a measured and in fair way.
Speaker 217:34
Hi, Julia, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. My name is Daisy. It's nice to virtually meet you. My question is very similar, but I would just love to hear more about the tactics that you use. So the question I wrote was, in today's political climate, how do you ethically report the news while remaining unbiased, ensuring that your word choice and tone are influenced by your own personal beliefs?
Julia Mueller17:54
Yeah, I mean, that is the philosophical question of journalism, right? I I think, you know, maybe this is a similar answer to what I just gave, but I think, you know, it's important to feel proud of and pleased with the stories that that you're engaging with, and I think a part of that is feeling some sense of satisfaction with the way that you approach a story. And that can be, you know, I interviewed really interesting people, or I interviewed people on both sides of the aisle. I wrote about this campaign, but I also reached out to the campaign that's competing against them. I think that the way that you approach your your stories is, you know, it helps, helps to that end, of course, right? And, you know, feeling like you gave the necessary context, and, you know, maybe that feels a little bit almost formulaic, but I think that can help your stories be accurate and kind of check the boxes of, I'm just writing an article. I'm not, you know, sharing my own thoughts. I, you know, I'm not just using the, I think I whatever, you know, the the lead and the nut graph structure, you know, you know, I'm going to include quotes. If I include a quote from this person, maybe I'll include a quote from their rival or someone else across the aisle. And I think the way that you approach the story is helpful to that end
Speaker 319:27
in your day to day. Are you working operating out of an office for the hill? Are you doing it in your apartment, remote, just like what is your work space and what is the demographic of the people you are working with? Are they young like you?
Julia Mueller19:42
Yeah, I the job I have, the newsroom I have is hybrid, so we have an office that's up near Capitol Hill, and I work there probably half of the week, and then the other days I work for my apartment, but DC is. Know, a fun town, there's always something going on. So some of the days, you might be working from the White House, or you might be working from Capitol Hill and, you know, or whatever places is relevant to what you're covering, which I think is really fun to kind of be able to roam around the city and find cool people and be in fun rooms where it happens, right? And in terms of demographics, I would say my newsroom is a little bit of a mix. The Breaking News Desk, for example, was all, you know, people like myself, you know, newish grads and you know, I think now that I'm in a the beat reporting sort of sphere, it's varied between younger people and seasoned veterans of DC.
Damian Radcliffe 20:46
Okay, we can't let it go when you just casually say, might just be working out the White House. So can you give us an example of what that might look like a story or that perhaps you've worked on recently, where that was your base? Because That sounds very cool.
Julia Mueller21:00
Yeah, I well as as part of, you know, my coverage areas, I get to go every now and then to the White House. Sometimes sit in on a White House press briefing, or work in the workspaces there. I can also, you know, have often covered White House events. For example, I was just at the White House Easter Egg Roll breaking news, right? Covering that. And it's, it's, it is very cool. And I will say I had a someone who works on the White House beat told me this when I just first got to DC. And I think it's relevant, of course, to specifically White House reporting. But I think any subject that you want to cover, or even if you're not that into journalism, any job you want to do, they basically said, you know, if, if the day ever comes where you think it's not at least a little cool to walk into the White House grounds like, you know, get out, they didn't say it that harshly. But I think that's true. You know, of course, there are days when you're like, slammed and, you know, you're not, like, raring to go do certain things, but I think in journalism and in the work that I do, it's very important to kind of maintain that, like, it is pretty cool to be here and be talking to these people, and, you know, to again be in that proverbial room where it happens,
Damian Radcliffe 22:23
given that you're a few years into your career now, what would be the main career and job hunting advice you would want to share with the group?
Julia Mueller22:32
Yeah, I think probably everyone will give you this advice, but it is the connections that you make and the people that you, you know, connect with are key. That's how I, you know, like I said, I started at my Hill internship, and it was, you know, in part, the relationship that I built with my supervisor during that time that, you know, she, she reached out to me and let me know about the breaking news position that was open. You know, you don't have to always be like, you know, 24/7 networking like some people in DC are. So hats off to those people. But I think it's important to, you know, build relationships with the editors that you work with, the reporters that you work with. Or, you know, if you're still in school, your your professors, and you know, people that come and talk to your class, maybe you can, you know, reach out and people, especially in journalism, I think I'm biased, but in my experience, especially in the DC bubble, people are super open to, you know, hearing from people, and sort of welcoming new voices and new reporters into the fold. And people will give you the time of day, and, you know, sort of help to the extent that they can point you along or answer questions. So don't, don't be afraid to do that. Because I was really afraid to do that when I was in undergrad. I was like, Who, what kind of, like, professional person wants to answer my question about, like, what internship should I do? But then I did, and I knew they were receptive, and it was, you know, so I would not have done that myself, so but, but now I'm telling you,
Damian Radcliffe 24:08
this is that line in Veep you have to network to get work right, right?
Speaker 124:14
Has there been a story you worked on that was just, like, really fulfilling, like, personally, professionally, and what was like the process of reporting that bottle up?
Julia Mueller24:26
That's a really good question. I think the stories that have been most fulfilling for me have been ones that like, maybe at the start we discounted them as a story. I'll give you an example from when I was in grad school, my friend and I were working on a on a project, and we were we flew out to Minneapolis. We were reporting on health care in the area, and we found this native led pharmacy in the Minneapolis area. Area that, you know, served communities in the area, and it had at first we were like, there's no story here. It's just a pharmacy. But we kind of dug around a little bit more, and even though we had initially discounted the story, it turned out that this pharmacy was really critical to the community in the area that it was really sort of an important mainstay for a lot of people, and we had, we were the first to sort of report on it, too, when, when we finally got the piece published, similarly with I mentioned that so GC era book that I worked on that started as like a tiny, tiny class project, and then it expanded into a book, even though, like at first, we were kind of skeptical of, is there that much here? But then there was, and so I think those stories can be really fulfilling of when you maybe discounted it, but something was like, let's keep digging a little bit.
Damian Radcliffe 25:58
And perhaps one last question to wrap up, what are the skills or mindsets that you would encourage students to either double down on or perhaps develop that maybe they're not covering here at the sojc?
Julia Mueller26:14
Yeah, well, I will say I am like in the sojc fan club forever. And I'm not just saying that because you invited me here to speak today. I learned so much here not to sound like old, because I just graduated in 2020, but you guys, I assume, still do like gateway, yeah, okay, some
Damian Radcliffe 26:36
people have done it, but newer students, that's now gone and been replaced with something.
Julia Mueller26:40
Oh, okay, okay, well, you know, Gateway, type, my experience in gateway, I'll say, you know, we worked with, you know, a number of different mediums, right? So even though I have always known I wanted to write and do print journalism in gateway and in my other so JC classes as well. You know, we worked with video and audio and, you know, even type PR, type communication stuff. And again, even though I knew what I wanted to focus on or the medium that I wanted to work with, I really, really value that. I also experimented with other forms. And I did that a little bit in grad school as well, and it has helped my reporting. I feel so much, even though I think, you know, maybe I'm not the greatest at like being a filmographer or something. Knowing how people approach a video story or an audio story is super helpful. I will often go on our on TV programs or radio programs to talk about my reporting or talk about my work or the news of the day, and knowing how people you know how those stories are crafted, and knowing what goes into that is helpful on both ends for the people that I'm talking to, and then also myself, being able to represent myself well in those spaces, and similarly, with you know, if you're in journalism, knowing about you know how PR people approach pitching you or reaching out to you, and vice versa, it is really helpful for sort of a symbiotic relationship in the communication space. So I would really encourage that, even if you like, think that maybe you're terrible at audio reporting, and you already know that you want to be a broadcast star. I think learning the tools and skills and how to work with that equipment and all of that will be really key. Great.
Damian Radcliffe 28:33
Thank you. And then, just lastly, is there anything we haven't talked about today that you'd want to ensure the group knew, or anything you just want to reiterate and reinforce and make sure they take away from this conversation.
Julia Mueller28:46
I think these were all really great questions. Thank you so much for having me take all of my advice about DC specific and apply it to whatever you know, arena or subject or area of the world you want to go into. But I think this is a really exciting field. I love it, and I think that, you know, I also love the sojc. So great to be here. Great to talk with you about all of this.
Damian Radcliffe 29:15
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe that way. Future episodes will automatically be downloaded to wherever you get your podcasts. You might also enjoy the demystifying media podcast from the University of Oregon, which features studio interviews and guest lectures with leading media and communication professionals from across both academia and the media and communication industries. Just search for demystifying media on all major podcast platforms