STORYTELLER

I’m a Journalist who works in Broadcast News. WHICH MEANS I SHOULD PROBABLY BE WRITING LIKE THIS… but I’m more of a fan of just lower case writing.

I entered college in 2012 at Gonzaga University for Pre-Med. I had my whole life figured out. I was going to be a trauma doctor in Chicago. But, life isn’t always how you plan for it to be. So on a day when my professor finally told me my dream would never happen, I walked into the Broadcast Journalism building and ran into one of the teachers. He told me to sit on the couch and give him a minute because he wanted to talk to me. I’d never seen or spoken to this person in my life and yet he wanted to speak to *ME?!? Well I waited and Professor Dan Garrity called me into his office. We introduced ourselves and after telling him what happened, he grabbed a change of major form and filled it out, including putting himself down as my adviser. He then handed it to me and said, “we got you.” That’s when I knew this was for me.

I had to work my way through the program as a Junior so I ended up a year behind, but by my fifth year, I was already working at a local station, KHQ. I worked originally as a Technical Media Producer where I learned the intricate details of the production side of working in a newsroom. I would participate in our afternoon meetings and pitch stories that I would find through Facebook groups and twitter. This experience helped me earn a promotion with the company where I moved to the assignment desk a month before graduating from Gonzaga.

On the assignment desk, I worked under the guidance of Kelly Hatmaker who taught me the daily life in a newsroom. He taught me how to find anything a reporter needs and how to find a story just as officials are discovering it themselves. He also helped me develop skills to work as a producer, but with the background of assignment desk. This gave me the ability to find information for myself and put it in the show I am producing.

After my time at KHQ, I decided to go home to Southern California. That’s when I found a job working at KEYT. I have been on The Morning News since November 2018 and continue to love the station and my co-workers. We have covered major breaking news such as mudslides, fires, and evacuations. And that was just in my first few months of producing here.

Being a storyteller means taking all of this and using it to shape the conversation of the day in the community.