Lovia Gyarkye ‘12 and the Art of the Critique
High school is a time when students can develop their interests, make mistakes, and reflect on a potential career path. Lovia Gyarkye, an arts and culture critic at The Hollywood Reporter, used her six years at Riverdale to do just this: learn about herself and grow as a writer. While she never envisioned some of the turns she made on her career journey, Gyarkye’s love for writing and journalism consistently steered her down the right path.
Gyarkye developed a passion for reading, writing, and art from a young age. In a 2012 essay Gyarkye wrote for The Riverdale Review, she discussed the influence the TIME magazine’s art section had on her childhood: “Growing up, TIME magazine has been my constant companion. Reading the stories in the red-bordered magazine has not only taught me the English language but has fostered my love of words and writing.” Entering Riverdale in the seventh grade through the Prep for Prep program, a leadership development opportunity that empowers students of color to receive a private school education, Gyarkye describes how writing gave her a voice and “was the only way [she] felt [she] could be heard without being judged.” She decided to enter The Riverdale Review since journalism allowed her to continue to develop her voice and highlight beautiful stories.
In 2012, Gyarkye became a Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Review, where she strived to tackle hard-hitting stories from concussion prevention in sports to neurodiversity and extra time on assessments. Understanding the importance of accessibility in journalism since it is ultimately a “public service,” she also attempted to bring The Review into the digital world by standardizing the use of its Facebook page. Ultimately, the fact that Gyarkye continued this work at Princeton University by editing and writing for an alternative magazine called the Nassau Weekly is a testament to The Review’s role in forming her passion for journalism. Writing in college, she continued to develop her writing style, learning to leverage metaphors and imagery.
Reflecting on her time at Riverdale and Princeton, Gyarkye explains, “student journalism is a really great way to start practicing some of the things that make you a great citizen of the world, such as critical thinking and the questioning of institutions.” Most of all, her school experiences taught her that journalism is not always formal and precise but allows room for creative messiness.
After college, Gyarkye entered the highly competitive yet rewarding journalism scene of New York City, eager to make her mark on the field. Gyarkye started her professional career as a fact-checker at The New Republic magazine. There, she learned about an entire ecosystem of overlooked employees in the journalism field, including copy editors, designers, and art directors. She then worked as a New York Times book reviewer and later an editor for the kid’s section, which she admits was a role she never envisioned herself undertaking. However, this experience helped her realize “nobody, not even a child, is voiceless. Rather, people do not have access to the megaphones that amplify their voice.” Newspapers, she says, have a responsibility to provide underserved people with these megaphones.
Simultaneously, Gyarkye worked as a freelance journalist, pitching article ideas to various publications. While most people think that journalists are tied to one newspaper, Gyarkye explains that “a lot of magazines and journalism is powered by freelancers, not just freelance writers but editors and designers as well.” Finally, because of her freelance work, The Hollywood Reporter recruited her two years ago to work as a film critic.
Gyarkye explains that criticism of art and literature, while often overshadowed by political journalism, is equally integral since criticism is something that everyone naturally does. Her role as a critic is not to be an arbiter of taste but rather “to provide a blueprint to [her] readers for how to interrogate the things that they are watching.” In order to equip her readers with historical and literary context to help form their own opinions, Gyarkye often watches the film she is critiquing multiple times, along with other movies in similar genres and by the same director. While Gyarkye says she has no real writing process and often scrambles to get her assignments in by their deadlines, she is “obsessed with coming up with a good first sentence.” Reading some of her latest reviews, such as on Netflix romantic comedy Your Place or Mine, the thought she puts into her hook is evident, and the way she weaves pieces of analysis into her plot summary is equally powerful.
Reflecting on her career thus far, Gyarkye explains that, as a Black woman, she has unfortunately experienced the sexism and racism within the predominantly white male journalism field firsthand. However, she understands that it is her responsibility as a journalist to use her position of power and interrogate problematic systems, highlight overlooked voices, and encourage her readers to do the same. In fact, during her time as a New York Times kid’s section editor, she made it her mission to diversify the books that children read to include Black and international literature. Gyarkye emphasizes that Riverdale student journalists play an equally crucial role in dismantling racist and sexist systems within Riverdale by continuing to diversify their media coverage and asking important, sometimes uncomfortable questions. Above all, Gyarkye encourages students to “hold on to [their] convictions while also staying curious about the world.”
