Doing it all: Evan Razmjoo excels at speech and debate and finds success in the field of journalism
'This is the first time hearing about that,' Razmjoo's brother and rising sophomore at Stanford University, Max Razmjoo, said. 'In the back of my mind, I knew that this was the logical next step for him, and I've got no doubt that he will be the perfect leader for the publication.'
Razmjoo has a good amount of leadership experience going into his senior year at Corona del Mar High School. In 2021, Razmjoo co-founded a speech and debate nonprofit alongside his brother, called Youth Prose Scholars.
As an experienced debater and public speaker himself, Razmjoo said he wanted to start YPS to spread speech and debate education to underfunded schools that didn't have the budget for debate teams.
Now mentoring and sponsoring more than 27 debate teams, YPS has grown beyond Orange County and has allowed Razmjoo to spread public speaking education worldwide.
'Through [YPS] I've been able to have a lot of meaningful interactions with various kids we've taught, from California to Japan,' Razmjoo said. 'We've helped students use their voices for meaningful change, and have taught them how to advocate for themselves. I hope we can continue to expand into the far future.'
HSI isn't new to Razmjoo either– he's been a member of the Student Advisory Board since fall 2024 and is a frequent contributor to the site. Razmjoo said he saw the HSI internship as an opportunity to broaden his skills in journalistic writing and make connections.
He said the story he pitched on his application came to him while 'just going through random studies.' Ironically, it was during this scrolling that he stumbled upon a study from the National Institute of Health, highlighting the detrimental effects of doomscrolling on the brain.
'I saw some alarming statistics on the significant effects of social media on our brain, and it caught my eye because it mentioned doomscrolling, which is such a Gen-Z thing,' Razmjoo said.
While there are many negative effects of social media usage, Razmjoo said he's also interested in using it as 'a tool' for young journalists to promote their work to a wider audience. One of his main goals for next year is to use his role as EIC to boost engagement and readership for his school paper, the CDM Trident.
'Engagement wasn't really a topic we discussed at school, but I always thought it was kind of a big deal. That inspired me to plan various activities, such as doing scavenger hunts for newspapers and fun surveys on our Instagram,' Razmjoo said. 'I've been working with our social media team, and I'm hoping that our advertising and subscriptions will double next year.'
Despite being so involved with journalism today, Max Razmjoo says he 'never would have pictured' his brother as a journalist five years ago, but is certain that the work they've done together for YPS has laid the foundation for a successful future in the field. He notes that his brother winning the New York Times' Teen Tiny Memoirs competition solidified this certainty, as his brother's winning piece demonstrated 'his ability to tell stories in impactful ways.'
'In his story, he connected his experiences playing basketball to my dad's immigration to the U.S. from Iran, creating this powerful metaphor,' Max Razmjoo said. 'I really admire how he always steps outside of his comfort zone to push his own creativity.'
During his time at the HSI internship, Evan Razmjoo hopes to learn more about multimedia journalism and expand his knowledge of professional tactics to bring back to his own writing and school paper.
'With a newspaper like the L.A. Times, there's always a lot to learn from the amazing professional journalists on staff,' Razmjoo said. 'I think it's essential for people to have quality information, because that leads to positive discourse. I want to learn how to make my work meaningfully inform my community in that same way.' Related
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