By Annika Tomlin
As an ASU senior, Vaughan Jones is earning a sports journalism major with a minor in music.
When he is not in class, Jones serves as the music director at Blaze radio, the Downtown campus’ radio station. He’s been there since his freshman year. Concurrently, Jones is training at NPR member station KJZZ, in the hopes he can spend his career in radio.
Jones is doing his part to inspire his peers. He’s a residential college student leader at Taylor Place, and acts as an academic resident adviser to help freshman students with their academics and make sure they stay at Cronkite. He was hired by Cronkite to work in its recruitment office and give tours of the campus for Devil’s Advocate. Somehow, he still finds time for other tasks, like serving at a restaurant.
Lastly, Jones is the vocalist/bassist/guitarist in the alternative rock band Cablebox, which is similar to Arctic Monkeys and the Strokes. The group is working on an album.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT SCHOOL?
Studying journalism has been such a great decision for me and doing it at ASU has been awesome. I think ASU as a collective as a community is great, and then specifically the Downtown campus is like a microcosm of that community. We are really tight knit here. Downtown specifically has a lot of really great young professionals. Like, we have trade people, journalists, nurses, people who study criminology and social work—a lot of professionals that are ready to enter into the career world. But ASU as a collective unit, there is a lot of pride here, so I enjoy that a lot. We are all really proud to be here, which is great.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?
“How Music Works” by David Byrne, who is the lead singer for the Talking Heads. I recently read this and it’s really new, so it’s hard for it to be my favorite book. I love the Talking Heads, and he is like a fantastic musical mind, so it’s just basically all of his thoughts of music as a medium, and I just love it.
WHAT ANNOYS YOU THE MOST?
When people call journalists, as a collective, “the media.” It’s a rash generalization. It really gets to me. Either that or when people are on social media and say nobody is covering “this” but, like, every local outlet ever is covering it.
WHAT IS YOUR GO-TO SHOW FOR NETFLIX BINGE WATCHING?
“Community.” I just finished it again. I love “Community.” It is just, like, perfect parts quirky and referential and smart and sentimental. It’s perfect.
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A BOOK, WHAT WOULD IT BE CALLED?
That’s a really great question. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that. I don’t know. “Hard News and Rock ’n’ Roll” or something like that.
WHAT IS NO. 1 ON YOUR BUCKET LIST?
I actually just made a bucket list the other day because I was really bored and I needed something to do. No. 1 on my bucket list is go to an Olympics. I want to attend an Olympics whether as a journalist or just a fan of Olympic sports.
WHAT COLLEGE ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR INCOMING FRESHMAN?
I actually get this question a lot because I work in recruitment. A bunch of incoming freshmen always ask me this. I would say keep your eyes on your own work. If you feel that someone is ahead of you or they are taking more credits than you or they are doing more clubs than you or whatever, you’re going to worry that you are not doing enough, but as long as you are doing enough for yourself, it doesn’t have to be enough for other people. CT
