CBS News Colorado's Black journalists share insights on community journalism; advise others to dream big
Every day we are guided as news people by our life experience. Our mission to inform and empower our community and to keep Colorado a great place to live is why we strive to build a newsroom that's reflective of the community we serve.
CBS News Colorado anchor Michelle Griego recently held a roundtable with our Black colleagues who bring you the news and keep us connected.
Many of us in this business are drawn to journalism and media to make positive change.
IT engineer Kimberly Abeyta helps keep us on the air and on the stream.
She told us, "I want to be an inspiration to my daughter and other girls looking to go into STEM fields and media. It's a field that's dominated by white men and I'm a Black female so I have two narratives I'm trying to tell."
Producer Joshua Thicklin wants to change the way Black communities are perceived and guide key decisions about how we report the news.
"Growing up where I was, my community often was on the news and I always wanted to have a voice. Have a chance to paint my community the way i wanted to paint it."
Justin Adams grew up in Montbello and will step up to cover a story there – even if it means an extra-long day.
"I understand the community, I grew up in the community I know what their story would be and you're able to go and get a different sound bite, tell it in a different way, a more authentic way to present it to our viewers so that's extremely important to be able to do that."
Chief photographer Kevin Hartfield has worked with us at CBS News Colorado for 38 years.
He told Griego, "For me after George Floyd, my first thought was, 'What took you so long cause these are the stories that we've seen in our community forever that don't get covered."
Thicklin added, "Before newsrooms used to take what officials say as gospel, whether it's police departments, whether it's governments and I think it kind of forced journalists in general to ask those questions more and to poke on things and say 'hey not everything is adding up'."
And newcomers like producer Breanna Moody, not yet two years out of college, focus on mentoring because that's what she says made a difference for her.
She said, "For me it's ok to be scared and have no idea and to be hesitant because this is a hard job, and the glitz and glamour when they teach you in journalism is completely different than what it is."
Anchor Mekialaya White advises others aspiring to media careers to dream big.
She counsels, "Not listening to the naysayers. I've had a lot of people say things even about my appearance. You're representing. Own who you are. You have to be proud of that."