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The following podcast episode made me uncomfortable.
I communicate for a living, and my trade is words. I stare frequently at blank cursors on my computer screen because I haven’t found the exact word to properly convey an adjective, identifier, or emotion. I wade into controversial waters with caution, because I know how certain words can be interpreted in unintended ways.
So when I invited Noelle Walker, an extraordinary and accoladed reporter for KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth, to discuss life as a woman in journalism in 2018, I knew it would require her to be vulnerable – and for me to join her.
I would need to challenge my own assumptions and choices, including with words. I would need to accept the ways in which I might be a part of the problem. I would need to avoid presuming to already understand what the problem might be. I would need to worry less about saying the wrong thing or using the wrong word and worry more about keeping my mouth shut and listening. I would need to live in the uncomfortable.
But I welcomed it.
I wrote earlier this year how equal representation in media isn’t just a task for the underrepresented, and I meant it. If I don’t use my position and platform to confront difficult issues and illuminate perspectives that aren’t my own, then I’m not doing my job as a journalist. That’s how I feel about my work on the air, and it’s how I feel about this blog.
That’s why I asked Walker to be my guest on Episode #68 of the Telling the Story podcast.
To be fair – and I mentioned this during our conversation – I could have asked Walker about any number of journalism-related topics and learned an inordinate amount. But I focused on this one because she just spoke at the Women in Visual Journalism conference in Denver, and I wanted to interview someone from that event about the lessons for all of us – specifically the younger journalists, women and men, who listen to this podcast. As expected, Walker offered tremendous insights and anecdotes, which one might expect from an experienced reporter who’s worked in numerous big cities and even freelanced at the network level.
(For an example of this work – and the process behind it – check out my recent podcast with Walker’s frequent photographic partner, Ryan Oliveira.)
