by andré earls

washington – several hundred animal rights activists joined similar groups around the world on saturday to protest cruelty to animals, marching from the white house to the capitol as they chanted such slogans as “animal clothing isn’t fashion, where the hell is your compassion.”

the washington organization total liberation partnered with the united kingdom animal rights organization surge, which organized marches in about 50 other locations including london, toronto, and mexico city, organizers said.

for about two hours, the marchers protested clothing made of animal skins and meat consumption, among other examples of cruelty to animals.

the biology department of the kalu yala institute looks a little different from a traditional research lab. bare feet and gym shorts suffice instead of lab coats and goggles. rather than scalpels or x-acto knives, students pick up machetes to make their way through the brush and pluck up specimen samples. and, in place of a classic laboratory space filled with spotless counters and sanitized equipment, the “classroom” consists of open-air wooden ranchos in the heart of panama’s rainforest.

out here among the towering fronds and scurrying iguanas, selah phillips is taking advantage of one of the natural resources that abounds in the humid environment: algae. the 20-year-old plant enthusiast, on a semester abroad at kalu yala from millersville university in pennsylvania, has made it her mission to take the green filaments and turn it into green energy. by extracting oil from the organisms, which grow freely on the rocks in the nearby pacora and iguana rivers, she believes she can produce a source of biodiesel to serve as an alternative to polluting fossil fuels.

“on a global scale, research on biodiesel enables us to deindustrialize, decentralize, and bring more income back to the community,” she says during a presentation for other kalu yala students. “just save our environment in the long term.”

those at kalu yala have taken it upon themselves to create a fully sustainable eco-city that can serve as a model for a more environmentally friendly future. the city in the making also hosts an “institute,” which enrolls students — many of them on a semester abroad from colleges and universities — to work on projects from tiny house architecture to agroforestry. they’re hoping to find solutions to the biggest environmental issues of our time, all in the span of 10 weeks.

phillips and her fellow “kalu yalans,” as they are fond of calling themselves, may miss out on some of the resources and credibility they’d find at a more standard university. but the unique nature of the program gives them unprecedented independence and access to the riches of the surrounding environment, a wellspring of biodiversity that often goes ignored by international researchers and underutilized by a national government that is decreasing its spending on research and development.

this past spring semester, kalu yala’s biology department consisted of three people: two students and program director ryan king, who serves as lecturer, lab adviser, mentor, and everything in between. all of them had come from u.s. universities. and, during their time in the jungle, all had created projects uniquely suited to the setting, which could have real implications for the future of sustainability.

if, that is, they can successfully bring their ideas with them in their return to the “real world.”

fueling the future

for phillips, the social media-savvy kalu yala had been on her online radar long before she ever decided to make the journey there herself. an earlier project to create sustainable ponds for growing tilapia had put the eco-city on her map as a place where innovative environmental work was happening. after following kalu yala’s work for three or four years, phillips said she decided to head to the jungle to see it for herself.

the journey, she said, represented an opportunity to challenge herself and be out in the field without the regular guidelines of the university curriculum.

and the project she picked out put her adaptability to the test. though the algae was free for the taking, the makeshift jungle “laboratory” lacked a lot of the supplies and equipment she took for granted at her university. so, with king’s help, phillips found ways to make do with what she could find.

to get the coveted vegetable oil out of the algae for biodiesel, king said he and phillips needed a chemical solvent to break the oil from the cells it was locked inside. the two decided to start with methyl alcohol, already available as a waste product from the onsite rum distillery, and combine it with homemade chloroform.

“that was really awesome and really exciting because as far as research that we know of, it’s the first time using house-made solvents — like solvents that we actually made in house, on our own — to produce biodiesel,” phillips said

eventually, king said he wants to work on growing “massive amounts” of algae and phase out some of the diesel power being used at kalu yala, like in the backup generator and possibly vehicles as well.

on her end, phillips plans to try to get the research published and see if she can continue the project at her university. king says there’s still research to be done in figuring out the most efficient way to produce oil, streamlining factors like the algae species and extraction methods. phillips said she’s also considered returning to kalu yala as a teaching assistant.

no matter where her plans take her, though, phillips said she is dedicated to the pursuit of a greener tomorrow. to create a sustainable future, she said new technology has to be based in an understanding of biological science.

“that’s all chemistry. that’s all biology that’s being understood to create those things,” phillips said. “so i think it’s at the base of reversing climate change and implementing sustainability, because sure, sustainability might seem more like a practical idea, more applicable. but i think it takes knowledge of science and the earth and the ecosystem to apply.”

sustainable soldiers

while phillips was looking to the river for resources, her fellow biology intern jules hart had her eye to the sky.

hart, a 20-year-old biology student from the university of nevada, is the animal lover of the bunch. her project took on sustainability from the other end: while phillips’ natural biodiesel aimed to prevent waste, hart’s focused on breaking it down more efficiently. and the tools she used to accomplish that? a colony of living, breathing — and, most of all, eating — black soldier fly larvae.

“basically in the developmental stage, like when they’re larvae, their sole purpose is to eat decaying matter,” hart said of the species. “so they’re perfect for eating rotting food.”

the larvae act as decomposing machines, effectively devouring even the tough scraps that won’t compost easily. after weeks of trying in vain to attract enough flies for a functioning system, hart said she finally was able to establish a colony near the end of her semester, and since has collected thousands of larvae in a wooden structure into which she periodically dumps buckets of kitchen scraps.

though she realizes the teeming mass and putrid garbage smell might put others off, hart says the flies — which she often refers to as her “babies” — are a beautiful discovery for sustainable waste disposal. adult flies don’t carry disease vectors, she said, and since they only live long enough to reproduce (about a week), they won’t mess with the ecosystem or become a nuisance to the community. also, once the larvae reach the pupation stage, they become a “little bite of protein” that can be fed to kalu yala’s chicken or tilapia.

hart said the project and her entire stay at kalu yala were transformative for her. she came into the experience a little bit unfocused — she hadn’t been fully applying herself to her studies at school, she said, and living thousands of miles from her family and boyfriend took a toll on her emotional state.

but the time in the jungle, in addition to giving her insight into sustainable systems, also taught hart a lot about herself – like the fact that she wants to be a teacher (she called her school from kalu yala to add a major in education). and while she’s not sure of how to implement the moisture-loving larvae back in her hot and arid hometown of reno, nevada, hart said at the very least she’ll be taking home a renewed passion for her studies.

“being here and being in the nature and just really being in the middle of the biodiversity and just in the jungle, it’s totally rekindled my love for biology,” hart said. “out here traveling alone, getting here alone, being that emotionally vulnerable … it just helped me get to know myself and my limits and my strengths and weaknesses.”

keeping the momentum

despite the wealth of biological resources in the rich rainforest ecosystem, king said he and his students are part of only a small group of researchers working in the panamanian jungle and similar tropical regions.

“biodiversity tends to go up near the equator,” king said. “there’s a lot of issues all over the world and in other parts in the tropics. … not many people pay scientists or researchers to go out and document species.”

for an institute focused on sustainability, though, kalu yala hasn’t always succeeded at sustaining its own progress. as students come and go every 10 weeks, projects can get left behind; hopeful innovations fall into disrepair as new cohorts of students bustle in with their own ideas.

hart said her black soldier fly colony was actually in part a reincarnation of a project that had been attempted in prior years. the structure she uses to house her larvae had been built by a former kalu yalan with a similar plan, but the concept had been abandoned once its originator moved on from the jungle. she’s created a detailed manual for maintaining the black soldier fly colony, which she said will involve only minimal effort. still, the fate of her passion project lies in the hands of future interns, who will likely be preoccupied with their own big goals.

and when students leave, projects that at the time seem to have promising futures tend to stop maturing at 10 weeks. king said none of his former students have gotten published with the work they began at kalu yala, though he hopes that will change with phillips’ algae research.

tara mclaughlin, the president of the kalu yala institute, said continuity has been an issue in the past. she and other leaders are working to provide more support for interns so they can grow their projects beyond their brief semesters in the jungle.

“we’re going to start pushing into publication, trying to get accreditation (in partnership with a university),” mclaughlin said. “i would like to start opening up a more research station facility type thing, so getting independent researchers from universities down to be doing research and publishing and getting our name out there as a real academic powerhouse.”

even for those far from the lush canopy of the rainforest, hart said there is still work to be done. while the natural world might be more obvious at a place like kalu yala, she said biodiversity can and should be noticed anywhere in the world. if we as a species truly want to move toward a more sustainable lifestyle, hart believes it’s essential that we pay more attention to the richness of life that is everywhere we go.

“biodiversity is all around us. i mean, it is nature. it’s every plant, every animal, everything that you’re hearing and smelling and seeing is life and biology,” hart said. “so, of course it has to be considered when we’re trying to think about living in this type of environment and … living with the earth rather than living off it.”

about the author: medill student maddie burakoff can be reached at mburakoff@u.northwestern.edu and on twitter @madsburk.

abelardo “tito” nuñez davies first came to pelican island 15 years ago. it was much larger then.

the small hut he and his mother share started out in the middle of this tiny oasis of sand. now, the structure sits at the edge of the waves on the island’s eastern shore, amid a cluster of palm trees. the ocean laps at their doorstep. but the building never moved; the island shrank.

over the past decade or so, storms have slowly been washing the sand away. davies has seen parts of the island flood and the beach begin to disappear. the storms, he said, are getting stronger and stronger. 

last year’s particularly fierce hurricane season didn’t directly impact the area, but pelican island still endured the effects. “the storm was soft,” davies said. “but it was still very scary. the whole house was flooded and it destroyed the wall.”

“what can i say? we’re here because of the grace of god,” davies said. despite the increasing threat of storms, he said he and his mother have no plans to relocate. they make money for their family by welcoming tourists, who visit the picturesque stretch of sand for a few hours at a time to sunbathe and drink out of coconuts. pelican island receives boats of them daily.

to combat the flooding, davies and his mother are attempting to build a sea wall off the island’s western shore, which may destroy the encircling coral reef in the process. but they don’t want to risk losing their island, which provides them with significant income.

does he think the storms will get less intense as time goes on? davies replied with a spanish tenet: “ojala” — god willing.

rising tides

pelican island is just one of more than 350 islands in the san blas archipelago, part of the caribbean province of guna yala (pronounced “koona yahlah”) along the northern coast of panama. widely regarded as some of the most beautiful and pristine in the world, some 50 of these islands are home to the guna people, an indigenous group that has won the rights to self-govern this area and a strip of the mainland coast.

the guna arrived to panama and these islands in canoes from the northern coast of colombia after the arrival of the spanish in the 1500s, fleeing colonization. since then, they have developed a relationship with the islands as well as their territory on land.

“i grew up in an environment of socialism,” said diwigdi valiente, a guna environmental advocate who grew up on these islands. “within my community, everything was shared. there were people that used to go fishing, there were people that used to go hunting, there were people that used to go farming, and then at the end of the day they would all come back and share everything they had with the people on the island.”

valiente has been visiting pelican island for years, and he said it’s shrunk to half its original size over his lifetime.

the san blas are on the front lines of climate change. scientists at the smithsonian tropical research institute in panama estimate that sea levels are rising three quarters of an inch every year, accelerating from the conservative 3 millimeter estimate first released by the u.n.’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc). at this rate, most of the islands could be underwater in less than 30 years. it’s a similar story in island countries and coastal cities around the world, from kiribati to dhaka.

“if there is a storm here, there could be islands that will completely vanish,” valiente said. “there are months when the islands get completely flooded. you have water up to your ankles. imagine living for a month like that.”

heating up

pelican island’s peril begins thousands of miles away, in the industrialized areas of the world. here, greenhouse gases — emitted mainly from fossil fuels — spread like a blanket across the globe and trap heat. scientists tout the “greenhouse effect” as the cause for global warming: it caused the warming of the earth following the last ice age, which supported life on the planet as we know it, but massive fossil fuel emissions since the industrial revolution have accelerated greenhouse gas levels to a dangerous peak. 

when light energy from the sun travels to the earth, it passes through greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (namely carbon dioxide and methane), originally derived from natural processes like decomposition and respiration in organisms. some of this light energy is reflected back into space, while some is contained by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. this trapped light energy contains heat that creates a warming effect that raises the temperature of the planet. without this layer of gases, earth would be far too cold for life to sustain itself.

but once humans began burning fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas made from previously decomposed organic material — during the industrial revolution, the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere dramatically increased. these emissions collected in the atmosphere, raising levels of carbon dioxide. the atmosphere, in turn, trapped more light energy and radiated more heat back onto the earth’s surface. this has caused the average global temperature to increase at a rapid pace — something never before encountered during the existence of humans on this planet.

as the planet warms, ice sheets in places like greenland and antarctica and sea ice in the polar regions, begin to melt. massive chunks of glaciers break off into the sea at alarming rates, melting and causing sea levels to rise.

additionally, atmospheric heat and absorbed carbon dioxide cause thermal expansion in the oceans. water particles become energized and take up more space, again accelerating sea level rise. 

moreover, a warming ocean sustains more intense storm systems such as hurricanes (as we’ve recently seen with increasingly brutal hurricane seasons). tiny islands like the san blas are ravaged by these storms, which uproot trees with strong winds and flood beaches with storm surge.

climate refugees

some guna people don’t appreciate the severity of the situation, said valiente, particularly older generations, like davies and his mother, who don’t have access to information about climate change and rising sea levels.

“you try to explain (to) people climate change, and they don’t understand it because they are not causing it,” valiente said. “the worst thing about climate change is that people in need — people that are not making the problem — are the ones that are going to suffer the most. everywhere. not only in panama, not only with the gunas — everywhere.”

but valiente is doing work to combat that lack of knowledge with a project called burwigan, leading art projects for guna children about environmental issues that affect them directly.

“we would make fish sculptures. we are putting the fish at different levels around the houses to show them where the sea level will be in the next couple of years,” he said. “i’m working with the kids because what they see now, it’s normal to them. to me, it’s not normal at all.”

valiente said that while moving is inevitable, plans for a mass relocation to the guna mainland territory several years ago never materialized due to a change in government. 

“we have (one of) the first documented cases of an indigenous group forced to move because of climate change,” valiente said, in “a country that did not contribute to climate change at all.”

speckled just north of the vivacious panamanian coastline is a chain of islands facing the threat of disappearing. these are the san blas islands in the caribbean and their daunting fate is not determined by the doing of their inhabitants, rather by the world around them.

the guna people came to the san blas islands to escape spanish colonization and have remained on these islands, though many live in mainland panama and in colombia as well. with their lifestyle inspired by two deities –– bab dummat (big father) and nan dummat (big mother) –– the guna have their faith rooted in nature around them.

the guna faith honors symbols from the world surrounding this ancient people, including hummingbirds, roots, and other powerful aspects of their environment. religion plays an irreplaceable role in their culture, with its nuances spread throughout day to day life, from daily routines, to health and science, to celebrations of life events.

the san blas islands –– where roughly 30,000 guna reside –– include about 365 islands stretching along northern panama in the caribbean sea. but only some 50 are occupied. many of the islands appear much like those pictured in these images, with sapphire blue water surrounding pale, white beaches dappled with bending palm trees and traditional buildings.

yet these beautiful islands are shrinking dramatically with sea level rise linked to climate change – a shift that sparks confusion among many locals. while the climate around them is changing rapidly, however, their contributions to pollution are minuscule in comparison to their continental neighbors.

the big picture is this: the sea is rising, causing these islands to slip away into the caribbean blue.

alberdo nuñez davies has lived in guna yala for 15 years, helping his family’s tourism business on pelican island, a small san blas island roughly five miles north of the coast of panama. his mother makes traditional molas incorporated in guna clothing and handcrafted beaded jewelry that she sells to tourists.  

when asked about the impact of the island shrinking on their tourism business, nuñez davies said through his translator, “do you see the rocks over there? (we) are trying to build a structure, a seawall and they have to build that so they don’t lose more sand and lose more tourism. and they are applying to fill it with coral reef which is also like really, really sad because they are destroying what gives them food.”

in his 15 years, nuñez davies says that the island has shrunk dramatically –– the building that clings to the edge of the island used to be in the middle of the sandy isle.

he has also seen an increase in storms and high winds, which have caused flooding and life-threatening winds of the island in the past. in response to “does he think the storms will get less intense as the time goes on?” nuñez davies simply said “ojala,” meaning “god willing.”

this deep reliance on the guna faith can be tied to its presence in the everyday life. on the city island of guna yala, locals respond to the sound of a helmet shell being blown for three different reasons: to wake up and call the workers to the mainland, to alert islanders that the fishermen are returning with the day’s catch, and to ward off earthquakes, storms, and high water.

while blowing the shell at a rapid pace, guna medicine man delfino davies states that it means, “all my spirits –– i am working,” in a way to thwart the aforementioned disasters.

“two hundred years ago we are here, in the small islands, but no big earthquake, no storm, because right now when the guna wake up, we blow that (the shell),” davies said.

while guna tradition is alive and well for many communities, the islands are slipping out of view, causing residents to fear that their culture will have the same fate.

“these people are going to move because of climate change,” guna hostel owner and climate change activist diwigdi valiente said. “and it’s not their fault.” valiente recently hosted an event honoring his guna culture through art. at this event, diwigdi said he recognized the gravity of the indigenous people’s situation.

“if you ask me that question, i think it’s a great opportunity for everyone to embrace a culture that’s about to get lost,” diwigdi said.

diwigdi went on to talk about his exhibition of guna artwork by guna children that “tell the stories of our insular countrymen, (being one of) the first displaced by global warming, with the desire to draw the attention of authorities, international organizations and the public in general,” according to a translation of the facebook event.

“all these treaties and philosophical knowledge that has lead us to where we are now – it’s being lost,” aresio valiente lópez, president of the institute of investigation and development of guna yala and lawyer of the general guna congress, said through his son’s translating. lópez attributes this loss to the passing, mostly of old age, of the practicing guna people. he feels that it is up to parents to teach kids to love the land.

this admiration for the environment is visible through the religious reverence toward animals and natural forces.

while the guna environment is facing dramatic changes through pollution and rising sea levels, the indigenous culture is also tainted by globalization –– a contributor to climate change through its widespread promotion of detrimental decisions, such as the use of fossil fuels and improperly handling waste materials.

lópez has an optimistic outlook regarding the fate of the guna people. “we are not escaping from the reality of globalization, and we are still keeping part of our culture alive,” he said.

western aspects have seeped into guna reality, much like how climate change’s impacts have.

only time will tell what the guna people will do in the face of dramatic climate shifts, with fear that this will spark evacuation from the islands, leaving behind centuries of success, stories, and culture while heading to a rapidly westernizing mainland.

“it will take (my generation) to actually solve the problems that my dad and his (generation) had,” diwigdi said. “because his generation was the one that built a bridge between the kuna culture and the panamanian culture, and more integrating the panamanian culture. now that i talk to you, i realize that maybe now that my dad and his generation (has built) that bridge, it’s time for my culture to bring back and try to get back as much as we can from our communities.”

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about the author: medill student colin boyle can be reached at colinbphoto@u.northwestern.edu and on twitter: @colinbphoto.

while on track with the goal of becoming “the world’s most sustainable town,” kalu yala got hit by a four letter word that challenged their mission, while temporarily stymying respectability and enrollment at its educational institute. in the damp environment of a rainforest town, the four-letter word is not “rain,” but a more-than-devastating factor that started with the wet season in fall 2016.

this quartet of letters temporarily washed away much of the participation in this eco-community concept of real estate entrepreneur jimmy stice.

the word is “vice.” its creation, “jungletown.” “jungletown” is the product of filmmaker ondi timoner, a series filmed in fall 2016 featuring kalu yala through the dramatized stories of disgruntled interns at the remote, sustainable enclave in a hard-to-reach valley of panama.

once the “docu-series” hit the internet in spring 2017, kalu yala was berated with some image-crushing accusations, many baseless in the eyes of staffers at kalu yala. articles and posts online began to circulate, calling kalu yala founder jimmy stice a “conman” and “controversial” and kalu yala “neocolonialist” and a “cult” on reddit.

flash forward to spring 2018 and the enrollment is dramatically smaller. at an institute that would proudly host nearly 100 students, it was graced by only 17 young, new trainees this spring. but stice and the kalu yala staff see enrollment re-gaining traction for summer with an emphasis on student innovation.

tara mclaughlin, president of kalu yala, describes “jungletown” as “a great example of media gone wrong.” mclaughlin, who grew up in central america and now works with the students and residents of the town, harped on the role of media in kalu yala’s worldwide appearance.

at the institute, there are more than a dozen programs offered to the interns to give them hands-on experiences while contributing to the progression of the town. programs include engineering, political science, media arts, biology, culinary arts, and many more.

and this is where the media arts team comes into play –– this creative group at kalu yala acknowledged the dangers of having an outdated website while facing the internet onslaught of trolls, bad press, and hurtful words. they are launching a dynamic revamp of their website with new material produced by interns and staff –– a hard task to continuously conquer when relying on internet support powered by solar panels. ironically, vice contributed $60,000 for the creation of the panel array in the middle of the jungle during one of their filming sessions.

in a struggle to properly inform their audience with relevant information, mclaughlin lauds the work of the interns working in the media arts department at kalu yala. “the media content that we’re trying to put out there is solely to combat the negative crap that has come out of this ‘jungletown’ experience,” mclaughlin said.

“so, we’ve been trying to combat that through our own media campaign, that’s why the media program this semester has been so amazing, that’s why ruby got a standing ovation,” mclaughlin noted.

ruby foster is an intern who created this video for kalu yala during her internship in spring 2018. 

at the end of the 10-week internship program, students had the opportunity to present the deliverables from their student-led project in their time in panama.

“it’s like super bowl week for me,” stice said excitedly in passing, prior to the presentations. all of the hard work from every aspect, whether it be media, agricultural, work done at the distillery, educational efforts, etc., is put on display for the entire town to rouse excitement and forward progress as the semester ends.

the media team had their own presentation the night before, screening their videos and photographs taken during their adventures in the jungle.

the media team was led by kalu yala media lab director taylor epps for spring 2018. the texas native was the first “completely unaffiliated” director for the media lab department in the town –– she arrived at the town only a few weeks prior to the new students. she knew nothing about “jungletown” at this point.

“when i first came on, i realized very quickly that there were some people that immediately associated me with ‘jungletown,’” epps said. “because i was media, i had that ‘media’ target on my back and so that made people uncomfortable so i had to work a little harder for people to trust me.”

she discussed the role of their media in the environment, particularly about how to understand the dynamic between producing media while being conscious of the sustainability of the project.

“that was the biggest part of our journey: how your voice is affecting your environment, knowing what that voice is, why people should be listening to it,” epps added. “you have the product, but tell me more about how it affects the environment…what’s the tangible outcome we’re working toward.”

epps said that she did not want her students to go forward without being able to identify the tangibility of their outcomes, particularly their carbon footprint.

jessica wiegandt is a junior at brevard college who came to kalu yala to satisfy her interest in outdoor journalism while in search of a media internship. at college, she is majoring in wilderness leadership and experiential education and english with an emphasis in journalism. during spring at kalu yala, wiegandt worked on stockpiling blog posts to promote an active blog even after the students complete their 10 weeks.

a barrier the media interns dealt with was working around their environment, as the town is solar-powered and sometimes faces challenging weather, which is not easy for a team focused on electronic equipment. while at kalu yala, the question of sustainability plays a key role in the work done by interns and residents.

“when you’re working with media, a lot of your stuff is just going online and so it’s not really taking up a lot of space –– it’s not going to rot away back into the jungle,” wiegandt noted. “the projects we’ve done: is it sustainable? yeah, because it’s going up on a blog to be shared and reshared… and as soon as it goes away it’s just a megabit out in the internet.”

for a small town in a panamanian valley, the internet, and the trail it makes online play immense roles. the stories that come out of kalu yala have a widespread reach, as the staff has discovered in light of the release of “jungletown.”

“we just had to admit the power of video,” founder stice said. “and second of all, third-party perspectives are worth a hell of a lot more than first-person perspectives.”

“and that’s where, for me, the students are the secret sauce, because if ruby foster was being paid by jimmy stice to make a video about how kalu yala is, i would think the video is pretty much just propaganda,” he said.

for stice, the work produced by the media team was not only impressive, but it also will help combat the internet trolls, while the town regains a credible voice online.

“vice pretty much invalidated me as a character –– my voice has a lot less weight than it used to have, so i need people to speak for me and the best people who can speak for you are the ones who aren’t on your payroll,” stice said.

the next steps for kalu yala are to utilize the student-produced work to create an understandable, actual portrayal of the eco-town with a mission online while drowning out the “trolls” and bad press about the place through search engine optimization (seo).

“right now we are recovering. we got punched in the face by a monster 10 months ago – vice took a very direct shot at us,” stice said. “i have learned a lot about media and online and content value and seo and reputation offenses.”

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about the author: medill student colin boyle can be reached at colinbphoto@u.northwestern.edu and on twitter: @colinbphoto.