{"id":11599,"date":"2026-07-21T20:08:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11599"},"modified":"2026-08-01T17:53:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T22:53:21","slug":"continuing-the-green-pen-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/continuing-the-green-pen-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuing the green pen legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Green ink fills the margins before a story is ever published. A ballpoint pen circles misplaced commas. Arrows connect commas to rewritten sentences. Scrawled cursive fills the empty space.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more than 40 years, John Kupetz has critiqued journalism the same way. In a digital era, he still prints each story and edits in longhand with a Pilot G2 gel pen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSymbolically, green is the color of hope,\u201d Kupetz said. \u201cIt’s hope that my students will make a life for themselves and that they\u2019ve learned a little bit about gathering, organizing and communicating information.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Every edit follows the same process. Kupetz reads for an overall impression before moving line by line through the story. He marks each page by hand, often spending multiple days on one set of stories. His objective goes beyond correcting mistakes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHelping students get better in what they do, that’s my goal,\u201d Kupetz said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pranya Duvvuru of Eagan, Minnesota, who is in Kupetz\u2019s instructor group, said she had never been edited on paper before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cHis comments really helped me see how I wanted the story to actually look instead of how I wrote it,\u201d Duvvuru said. \u201cHe always ended comments with, \u2018Pranya, I promise you\u2019re a good writer. Just relax and keep writing.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His conversations with students went beyond journalism. Kupetz\u2019s curiosity extended into books, movies and nearly every topic students wanted to discuss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have a list of John\u2019s book recommendations,\u201d Duvvuru said. \u201cJohn, for me, is like an encyclopedia because he just knew so much about everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

May Lin of Belmont, California, another student in Kupetz\u2019s instructor group, said that curiosity is what makes him stand out as a mentor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m able to joke with him,\u201d Lin said. \u201cHe\u2019s not someone who feels superior to me. He\u2019s someone I\u2019m able to have a good conversation with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Decades after first sitting in Kupetz\u2019s classroom, former students return to teach alongside him. Three of the 2026 instructors were in Kupetz\u2019s instructor group as teenagers: Cynthia Wang, a freelance writer; Juliet Allan, a recent Medill graduate; and Bret Begun, a senior editor at Bloomberg News.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wang first met Kupetz when she was 17 and in his instructor group. More than 30 years later, she returned to the program and now teaches beside him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time anyone had looked at my work through a purely journalistic lens,\u201d Wang said. \u201cThe amount of attention he put in my work made me feel valued, but also that he valued the craft.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Their relationship has evolved beyond the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur conversations are different now,\u201d Wang said. \u201cThey\u2019re just about life \u2014 just about what’s happening with both of us.\u2029The fact that we both have wonky knees.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Kupetz, those relationships are the best parts of teaching.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI got the better part of the bargain when they had me for class,\u201d Kupetz said. \u201cThen I got to know them. And some of them aren\u2019t just students. They\u2019re incredibly close friends.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instructor John Kupetz’s editing influences generations of students, from former cherubs who now teach to those learning today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":11704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[682],"class_list":["post-11599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":682,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"okarp26","display_name":"Olivia Karp","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/946c0f6b50d564ae95930ba3043367c6921f0e1e8b23233857c73a7bd0f2cd33?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Karp","first_name":"Olivia","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11599"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12841,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599\/revisions\/12841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11599"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}