Former BBC radio host, APM Studios chief content officer, and founder of En(title)d! Leaders, Joanne Griffith talks about the importance of connections and mentorship, the challenges facing Black journalists, and the evolving role of journalists in community storytelling.
Joanne Griffith is the chief content officer for APM Studios, the podcast-production division of American Public Media.
But in her early career she was launched into a leading role as producer and host of a local radio show. Since then, she has spent her career developing stories and initiatives for audiences of colour with the BBC, NPR, Marketplace and Southern California Public Radio. She also founded an organization called En(title)d! Leaders, a conversation and coaching space for leaders of colour in media.
We talk about growing up in a Caribbean household with a strong audio and radio culture, her route from intern to BBC radio host, the importance of connections and mentorship, as well as community representation in journalism, and the essential but underrated value of curiosity in storytelling.
I always say that I have my dad to thank for this career. My parents are from the Caribbean, from Barbados, and the Caribbean has a huge audio and radio culture. You wake up in the morning, the radio is on; you’re going to work, the radio is on; you’re at home in the evening, the radio is on. So, between my dad and my sister, I just kind of got the bug for telling stories.
I ended up doing a postgraduate in broadcast journalism at the University of Westminster in the UK. The person who ran that program, Jim Latham, happened to be the managing editor for one of my local radio stations. He was like, “Oh, I know someone that you should go and intern with, a wonderful woman, Sylvia Lam.” And that was really how this career started.
It really is connections. And I think especially for Black journalists, for journalists of colour, that can be where it’s tricky. If you don’t have those connections or you don’t know people who work in newsrooms, like regardless of the platform, you can apply, but you’re one of hundreds, maybe thousands sometimes. And so just having that one connection, I guarantee I would not be doing the work that I’ve been doing for the best part of 25 years if I hadn’t met Jim and Jim hadn’t connected me to Sylvia because that just opened up doors to a career with the BBC.
“I realized this station isn’t telling stories from my community. There are things happening that we are part of all the time and it’s, well, none of that’s on the radio. Why isn’t that on the radio?”
That, a thousand percent, would not have happened, or it would have been a lot harder, or I just may not have been able to get as far as I did while I was in the UK. So yeah, mentorship and connections really do matter.
Once I was in, I realized this station isn’t telling stories from my community. There are things happening that we are part of all the time and it’s, well, none of that’s on the radio. Why isn’t that on the radio? So that gave me my own beat, so to speak. I’d be the person that would come in and be like, “Hey, this thing is happening in this particular community. Here’s a way that we could do the story.” Now that wasn’t easy because I was the only Black journalist in the newsroom, which definitely came with its own challenges, but it did open a pathway to not only be a storyteller but to also understand the role that I played in representing my community, skills of negotiation, how to be a little bit tough when people would constantly say no, or just be like, why would anybody be interested in that?
Yes and no. The station that I worked at, it’s outrageous when I think about it now, but on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday were when all of the ethnic shows ran. The town that I grew up in, there were a lot of Black folks from the Caribbean, Irish folks, Italian folks, people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and all of the shows for those groups ran on the weekends. The show that I worked on, that I started on, and they literally were kind of back to back. We were the show after the Irish show; the Italian show was before that. And then there was an Asian music show that was after us.
What it meant was that we had a level of community amongst all of us who were not mainstream. I really credit that community with having the fortitude to continue because they would validate the stories like, “Oh my gosh, yes.”
Or there was a lot of exchange of, “Oh, you know what?” because we would all listen to each other’s shows as well. And they’d be like, “Oh yeah, that thing that you did last week, I heard something else that might be really interesting for you.” Or, “I met this person, they might be a good guest on your show.”
So we kind of had our own sub radio station or sub network going on the weekends. So it didn’t feel isolating.
You got to know what you stand for.
I was, I don’t know, like 22, truly I was just starting out. In those early years I saw there were people that I went to journalism school with who did a year or two and they’re like, ‘this is awful and this is hard. I’m going to go and become an accountant or whatever,’ literally anything that was not having to throw elbows in a newsroom. But I really think it was that just like knowing what your values are when it comes to your journalism. And not that you can’t be flexible, like things change, industries change, but you have to, at the core of your being, understand why you’re doing it. What are the values that you will not be blown from?
You know, it’s funny to me now-not funny like “haha”- but again, I’ve been in the industry 25 years, and we were having a conversation about diversity when I started, and we are still having conversations about diversity and inclusion now.
Personally, I’m tired of it. Just do it. It’s good for business. It’s the morally right thing to do. We live in a multicultural society. For me, diversity is a core value and always has been. It’s just part of the work. I don’t talk about it. It’s not a “give me a gold star for it.” Just do the work. Just build it in.
Look at people and communities in their totality. Not just, “Oh, well, this person is trans, it must mean that they are this.” Go talk to the person. That, to me, is a core value too. Never make assumptions about people or a community or a place. Talk to people and find out, “what is it that’s important to you?” And then program to that.
Follow your curiosity. Among all of the journalists that I know, the common theme is that we were all told at some point that we were nosy kids. Be that kid.
If you're curious, like, why do I have a pink tree in my backyard that I didn't plant? There's a story behind that. Don't let life wash over you without taking a pause to say, “I actually have a question about that.”
Ask the question, get an answer, ask another question, because to me the best journalism is just natural curiosity. And any of us can be naturally curious (or practiced curious), it's all just being curious. I think the tidbit that I would share is, don't skip over that. If you have a question about something, just ask, “Can you tell me more about that?”
And the benefit of that too is, since we're talking about mindful Black journalism, you're also taking an interest in people. You're helping somebody else feel seen or heard that day, or maybe they don't have many people that ask them about a particular thing.
You're building connection, you're building community. As a journalist, you're not just taking, but it's also what you're feeding back into the ecosystem.
