Is there an optimal age for success? The answer is no. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always reach professional heights and education is not always important. Hilde Lysiak proved it. The young girl was able to become equal to adults and professional journalists. Her path was very interesting, but, unfortunately, changeable. How did a teenage girl manage to publish her newspaper, write several books and conduct detective investigations? Read more on brooklyn1.
A family of writers
Hilde was born in 2006 in Brooklyn. The girl’s parents were involved in writing and publishing. The mother was a writer and worked as a freelancer. The father was a full-time employee of the New York Daily News. His work influenced his daughter’s enthusiasm. Matthew Lysiak took his daughter with him on business trips to other cities. He did not leave her at the hotel and took her to work. The girl often mentioned the high-profile cases of that time, which her father covered, including criminal offenses, for example, the mass murder in South Carolina or the murder in Florida.
Covering real problems and tragedies, Mr. Lysiak felt that he was doing real journalism. However, newspaper readers did not want to read about problems and tragedies every day. The newspaper had to adapt to the needs of its readers, which led to Hilde’s father’s complete disillusionment with journalism. After that, the family moved from New York.
In addition, Matthew Lysiak received an order for a book about the mass murders at the Sandy Hook School.
The Lysiak family moved to Pennsylvania in 2014. There, the first formation of Hilde as a future journalist began. As a family pastime, the family decided to publish a home handwritten newspaper, the Orange Street News. The newspaper was devoted to the events of the Lysiak family and the surrounding world. The first note written by Hilde was about the birth of her younger sister. Together with the newspaper, the girl started to run pages on social networks.
The newspaper about their family soon grew into a news outlet. As a seven-year-old girl, Hilde visited the police station and the city administration to receive the latest news. Sometimes, she just walked down the street and talked to passers-by to hear their opinions.
Her activities were quickly noticed by the NBC channel, which made a report about her.
The first popularity
In 2016, real popularity came to Hilde. The girl could not be responsible for everything on her own. She was still a teenager, but already did a significant part of the work, such as creating the story, writing articles and reports and taking photographs. Father was an editor. Hilde was also helped by her older sister Isabelle, who was involved in journalism. At that time, she already ran her column in the newspaper The Daily Item. Ask Izzy earned the girl $25 a week.
Real popularity came to Hilde at the age of 9. By chance, she found out about the crime and immediately went to the scene on a bicycle. There, she made a note and began her own investigation. All this looks like a series about a small detective. Her note was the first on the matter. This drew attention to her, unfortunately, only negative. The community of their town was outraged by this situation. Their newspaper’s e-mail received many negative letters. Parents filtered all mail. This conflict attracted the attention of The Guardian.
The negativity of the public did not stop the little girl. Hilde soon published a new article about drug dealing at school. The girl’s parents, or rather the father, carefully followed everything that the daughter published, as well as her investigations. Mr. Lysiak knew journalism very well and understood the needs of the readers.
Hilde, with the support of her father, began to cover the news not only of her quarter but also of the entire town. Her readers started sending her news and notes. Then, she started charging $1 per newspaper, which she personally delivered to her subscribers. Soon, it attracted many major publications, such as The Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
The success of the young journalist lay in her home education. This gave her a lot of time to search for new topics.
In 2016, the circulation of the newspaper reached 500 copies and the annual subscription cost $20. There were many more readers on the Internet. Hilde also became a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, which made her the youngest journalist in the country with a real income. Hilde considers Nellie Bligh to be her idol. Her investigation into corruption in a psychiatric hospital captivated the girl’s mind.
Other hobbies
Every year, her parents sent Hilde to a summer camp. This helped the girl to distract herself from work and live the life of a simple child. After all, both her parents and the girl considered her employment to be work and not a hobby.
In 2019, the family moved to Arizona to give their children new experiences. The new home was very different from their native Brooklyn.
Despite all the seriousness of the work, Hilde is still a child. There are many dolls and dollhouses in her room. Along with girls’ toys, she adores racing cars. Therefore, her dolls often take part in races. The girl likes to spend time with dogs Archie and Bismarck.
Hilde is often involved in charity work. She once donated her monthly income to the Malala Fund.
The girl also actively advocates for the expansion of the child’s rights to independence.
Once she had a conflict with a local policeman, which resulted in a large-scale scandal. Everyone sided with Hilde, because she had an audio recording of the policeman’s threats.
The policeman stopped Hilde and forbade her to go in the direction she wanted. He explained it by the fact that they saw a predatory animal there. The situation happened in Arizona. The girl gave the man all the necessary data and refused to obey his order. He threatened to arrest the girl. Later, the law enforcement officer stated that she did not tell him that she was conducting a journalistic investigation and told that the reason for the trip was a visit to friends. The scandal was huge. As a result, the mayor of Patagonia apologized to Hilde.
Books, awards and retirement from journalism
In 2020, Hilde faced an internal conflict. She thought about leaving journalism. Over the years of her work, the opinion of readers and mass media has not changed. She was also considered a little journalist prodigy. The girl’s depressive state was also caused by her professional failures. Hilde never published unverified data. It burdened her. Her life seemed to be like a detective series, but in fact, everything was not so bright. This is what led her to a psychologist.
The girl described her professional and personal path in the book Hilde on the Record: Memoir of a Kid Crime Reporter. The book was published in 2022. In it, the girl talked not only about her affairs but also about their reverse side.
Readers were impressed by the girl’s openness and her bravery in some moments. Telling about her adventures, Hilde tried to inspire readers to their own exploits.
Lysiak’s literary activity did not end there. Together with her father, she concluded several commercial contracts. They began publishing a series of children’s books about her adventures. Based on one of the books, the TV series Home Before Dark was filmed. The series was filmed with slight deviations from the canonical story. Brooklyn Prince was cast as Hilde and Jim Sturgess as the father. In 2020, the series was renewed for a second season.
Some critics noted that the serial prototype of Hilde is much brighter and more talented than the real girl. However, this did not prevent her from winning several awards and recognition from other journalists. She received national awards in 2016 and 2019.