Princeton on TV: Tal Fortgang ’17

“It was good, but it was overwhelming,” Tal Fortgang ’17 said, describing his brush withfame. On April 2 of last year, Fortgang, a freshman at the time, wrote an article in The PrincetonTory titled “Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege.” What followed was amedia frenzy of radio show interview requests, op-eds with counter-arguments and plenty ofemails with positive feedback. Fortgang’s viral piece also landed him appearances onFox News for the whole country, perhaps the world, to see.

“It was a real taste of the big stage,” he said. “And so that comes with its perils, but also it’s prettyexciting.”

Fortgang’s journey to the small screen began with an email that asked for him to come into the studio.He agreed to the request, and before his appearance the studio called him to discuss the themes they'd be touching on and prime him “to get theright talking points.”

For the first interview, he said that he was essentially in “a dark, emptyroom with one really nice camera.” But for his second appearance, there was a panel of hosts, with one of the hosts asking him all the questions. “It was very simple; I got to look at [one of the hosts], which was alot easier than looking into a space,” he said.

Being on national television can be a nerve-wracking experience, but Fortgang prepared himself: “I was just thinking, ‘Okay, don’t sound too sophomoric and don’t say anything completelyhorrible and stupid.’ I’m sure plenty of people think that what I said was horrible and stupid,and that’s fine; they’re entitled to their opinion, but I didn’t want to dig myself any kind of holethat I hadn’t already dug.”

However, Fortgang was in good hands. “[They] took very good care of me. They let me know exactly where I neededto be at all times,” he said. "Everyone was always offering me a cup of water, if I needed one. They’re veryhospitable.”

He was shocked, he recalled, by the fact that the hosts from FoxBusiness shows recognized him. The national attention, however, was overwhelming.

“The whole thing lasted, Idon’t know, a few days, maybe a week. And there were a couple of nights in there where I feltreally, really overwhelmed, like, ‘I just don’t want to deal with this anymore.’ But I realized thisis just something I’m going to have to live with ... It’s just something I have to embrace, and I’mnot embarrassed about what I wrote.”

Fortgang does not shy away from the conversation his article started. If given the opportunity, hewould have accepted more interviews to shed light on the conversations he sparked.Going onTV was an opportunity to “put a face on some writing that, you know, people could really getnasty and smear,” he said. “But you put a human face to it, and you showpeople that you’re not such a terrible person — hopefully they might rethink the hardline of theirposition,” he said.

He did say, however, that he's had second thoughts about the tone of his piece.

“Iprobably would have softened it, a little bit. Anticipating that, I don’t know, a few hundredpeople might read it, I kind of threw in a couple of cheap jabs,” he said. “Had I known that I was going to be on Fox News, I probably would havechanged the tone, made it a little bit more professional. I know that for the future.”

And would he want to be on TV again?

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“Sure,” he said, “hopefully talking about somethingcompletely different ... People refer to me as ‘privileged kid.’ I hate that. That’s one thingthat I wrote about.” He added: “I’m not defined by this one topic. So, if something I write is as successful as that piece,but possibly on a completely different topic, I’d love to do that again.”

At the end of the day, Fortgang is the average Princeton student — he likes to hang out with his friends, skip class(occasionally), go to the gym and is a mega-fan of broomball. He plans to major in politics.