ALUMNI: Heather Knight
By Viktoria Anderson,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–
Heather Knight, a Davis High graduate of 1994, began small in journalism class writing for The Blue Devil HUB newspaper. However, after graduating, she chose her own path to follow her passion in a way she did not expect.
Knight always knew that she wanted to make a job out of writing, but it wasn’t until a few internships during her junior year of college that she realized journalism was the way she could do that.
Today, Knight is the city columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
From the press room at the San Francisco City Hall, she writes two columns a week covering politics, homelessness, education, family life, housing and other subjects.
During her years at DHS, writing for The HUB was her first introduction to journalism and reporting. Alongside her journalism class, English was her favorite subject as she had yet another chance to read and write.
“I remember really liking my English classes at [DHS] which cemented my love for writing,” Knight said.
After DHS, Knight went to Stanford where she wrote and edited for the campus newspaper, the Stanford Daily. One of her most memorable features she wrote was on roommates of famous freshmen.
“My class at Stanford included Tiger Woods as well as some other celebrities and talking to their roommates about what it was like to live with them was a lot of fun,” Knight said.
Her practice and education at Stanford led to internships at the Los Angeles Times Washington D.C. bureau and the Davis Enterprise.
While in D.C., Knight was regularly sent to Capitol Hill and the White House, where she covered press conferences and other news events.
The internships convinced her she was on the right path of taking up a career of writing as well as news reporting.
However, at first, reporting was not easy for Knight because of her shy personality.
“I’ve overcome that and now like asking the hard questions. I like getting to be nosy and find out interesting things going on and tell people about it,” Knight said.
After graduating from Stanford in 1998, Knight landed her first job as a journalist at Newsday in New York where she worked for six months after which she joined the San Francisco Chronicle.
San Francisco is “a fascinating city,” according to Knight, and the perfect place for her to do her job because she never runs out of ideas for stories, problems that need solving or inspiration for writing.
Knight has lived in the city since 1999, the same year she began at the Chronicle. She lives with her husband and two children, ages 4 and 7. Her married name is Bennett but she is known at DHS and as a columnist by the surname Knight.
This year she became city columnist for the Chronicle, one of her greatest successes.
“I love the job because I get to write very serious pieces and more humorous ones. It really runs the gamut,” Knight said.
Through her writing and the many opportunities she receives as a reporter to interview and interact with strangers, Knight strives to convey a message to her daily readers and listeners.
“I strongly believe in the old axiom that journalism is about afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. That is what I try to do on a regular basis,” Knight said.
