Cambridge, MA– Several months ago, a good friend of mine and former spokesperson at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport, Felicia Joy, invited me to speak to her class at Syracuse University. The Newhouse School of Public Relations, a well respected institution nationally for journalism and public relations, was where Felicia had set up shop to expand on her incredible career.
She’s already been a spokesperson for two big corporate giants with America’s busiest airport being the most recognizable. Now she was a professor, teaching graduate students about her experience and helping them to succeed by giving them the foundational principles of public relations. I was invited to speak to her class on two occasions to speak about my past life as a network news producer for ABC News.
Felecia and I had worked together twice and had known each other since 2005. When she was at Hartsfield-Jackson, I was an eager production associate in the ABC News Atlanta bureau looking to prove myself and earn a promotion to producer. Our relationship grew and we became friends outside of our roles at work. She was invited to my wedding in 2011 and we’ve kept in close touch since meeting.
In the fall of 2015, Felicia was accepted into Harvard’s graduate School of education. She immediately texted me and said ‘I’m going to get you to speak at Harvard!” Of course I was thrilled! But silently I wondered to myself, ‘how would she be able to pull this off, especially as a student?’ Nevertheless, I never had a moment of doubt because of how truly dynamic Felicia is. As a former client, I know that she can truly do anything she sets her mind too and thus, I couldn’t dismiss the idea, no matter how amazing and truly ground breaking it seemed to me. (I’ll speak to how truly terrific and gifted Felicia Joy is in future posts).
Felicia Joy in the colorful Blue blazer
Having completed only one semester at Harvard in graduate study, Felicia emailed me in January to ask if I’d be apart of the 44th Annual H. Naylor Fitzhugh Conference sponsored by the African-American student union of the Harvard Business School. I quickly confirmed my attendance.
My assignment was to speak on a panel entitled: CHANGING HOW THE WORLD SEES US: BLACK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA. I was joined on the panel by some really incredible talents and influencers in the black landscape of media in this country. First, Vanessa De Luca, the editor-in-chief of Essence Magazine, Lenard McKelvey aka Charlemagne the God of the nationally syndicated morning radio show The Breakfast Club and Kaira Akita the founder of Reality Revolution and an actress in several Tyler Perry Films.
(L to R) Charlemagne, Kaira, Brandon, Vanessa
There was an amazing synergy between all of the panelists, the likes of which I had never experienced. The moderator, Dawn Turner, a former Chicago Tribune columnist and a ‘brilliant’ writer and host did a masterful job directing the discussion. It had great energy, insights and was infused by the audience’s desire to go behind the veil of the corporate media monster in America.
This annual conference sponsored by the African-American student union at the Harvard Business School centers around collecting the nation’s best Black minds it can attract to speak on a theme. This year’s theme was ‘Transcend, Redefining Expectations.’ Our panel was about changing how African-Americans are viewed in the media and the potential affects that change can have on business.
My commentary centered around my experiences at ABC News, mostly from my time as a desk assistant on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. I wanted conference attendees to know that those who make decisions about how Blacks are depicted in the media don’t look like them and often can’t identify with their lives or journeys. “If our senior producers had to apply for a job in the ‘Black experience’, I said. They wouldn’t be qualified.’
I also spoke to the personal experience of having my own sister trapped in a dorm at Xavier University during Hurricane Katrina and watching the ‘refugee’ discussion take place behind the scenes in the newsroom ‘rim’. The rim was the area where the show’s anchor, Peter Jennings, his senior producers and writers gathered to work to decide what news to report each evening. I sat adjacent to the rim for two years and during that trying time in 2005, I watched as people I had come to respect, fail so miserably to connect with a larger issue of Black identity during a critical time in our governments history. One where many feel like African-American’s were neglected.
But this story hit home for me because it affected my family.
The CHANGE I suggested was to keep careful watch of what we write, tweet and share. A lot of what perception is about Blacks is created and promoted by us. The experience was truly empowering and I am forever grateful.
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