I WOKE UP LIKE THIS

Good morning world, 
Welcome to Humans Tell Stories, a site where you will find real stories told by real people. The goal is to create a space for stories many mainstream journalists cannot tell.  At my last TV station, I was told by an EP, "Your passion for people is to a fault"...I was dumbfounded. I  believed my "passion for people" is what made me a great journalist. I took the feedback and reflected, but a week later, the news director (same station) said something similar, criticizing my "passion" for people. 

There IS a reason why I have "passion" when covering stories about people, all people because I am a person. It is easy to work on TV and forget we are working for people, the viewers, the ones that need the vital information we are giving to them. Many of us get caught up in the superficial aspects of the job, forgetting who we are, journalists. Those viewers have daily trials and want to feel heard, understood. I like relatable stories. I love stories where at the very end you felt something, compelled to change the world...you might call it solution based journalism. 

Who are you? What do you want to be? What is your purpose of making the world a better place? I would ask myself these question every day in college, and the answer was always (insert drum roll) a journalist. My mind would always try and convince me otherwise, "Why?" "You won't make any money!" "People will hate you 99.9% of the time!" "The President even criticizes your every move!". Despite my monkey brain, I would always respond with... "BUT I want to help people!". I know journalism isn't a conventional way of helping others, but to me, it is one of the best ideas, especially for communities that do not have representation in the media. 

I am not the "normal" blonde, blue-eyed, middle-class white girl that many might think I am when they look at my polished headshot. My family multi-racial and I grew up in a tiny town in California's Central Valley, surrounded by gang violence and farmland. Over 85% of the students that went to my elementary school lived below the poverty level. Unlike my friends, my family chose to live on the westside in what many called the ghetto side of town. 

My parents devoted their lives to working with addicts, children, gang members, and undocumented people. I saw first hand what it is like to live in a community held hostage by gang violence, with little police intervention or journalists to tell a story. Witnessing injustice firsthand has given me a different perspective in news/journalism/storytelling, one many newsrooms rarely understand. I choose to embrace my passion for people and create this platform to focus on social justice issues worldwide. I think my life experience prepared me to be a journalist at this very moment in time. 
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If you get the message and would like to contribute, reach out. .