What was your first job as a journalist?
Michigan Citizen, weekly Black-owned newspaper which ceased publication in 2014. Investigative reporter from 2000 to 2010.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Not in my work as a journalist. Used typewriter when I began working for the city of Detroit in 1974.
How is social media changing news?
Helps to propagate coverage around the world.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
I don't have one.
What does it mean to be a journalist?
To report the truth as seen from the majority perspective of poor and working people and people of color.
What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
Question is unclear.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Laptop computer, WordPress, SmartPhone camera/video.
What's your favorite social network?
Facebook.
Who do you wish followed you?
Those who cannot access online newspaper articles, including prisoners, senior citizens and others without internet access.
Why did you become a journalist?
It was my lifelong dream from high school on, but I got diverted into other avenues until 2000.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
Yes I was editor-in-chief of the Our Lady of Mercy High School newspaper.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
A series of stories on the Detroit police killing of Aiyana Jones, 7, in 2010, trials of killer Joseph Weekley, Aiyana's father and uncle.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Find a world view that you are ardently committed to and reflect that in your journalism.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Evenings and weekends.
What's the best pitch you ever got?
Thelonious 'Shawn' Searcy contacted Voice of Detroit for coverage of his evidentiary hearing in 2018.
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
Don't understand the question.
What's your favorite drink?
I don't drink.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
Out covering stories.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
Black Agenda Report.
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
Belief in mainstream media coverage which is frequently biased toward the status quo of corporate, police and military control.
