Fork in the Road
Since I recently retired from the Voice of America, I’m sharing a favorite photo from my time there. This is me in the White House press briefing room during the Obama administration. It was an off camera moment while were recording stand ups for VOA’s first Swahili language television series.
Please forgive the exceedingly long post that follows here. I’m feeling nostalgic:
I’ve had a great career so far.
As a 20-something voiceover producer at Worldnet Television, I dubbed American TV series; like Marty Stoufers Wild America, Science World, and We the People; into other languages. I also produced simultaneous interpretation of talk shows on subjects that impacted people around the world.
As a video journalist, I got to interview Vincent Palumbo, the stone carver at the National Cathedral. I followed a Baltimore heroin addict through acupuncture in jail to recovery in a halfway house – the inmates standing on jailhouse lunch tables to sing the song from Gilligan’s Island made my day. I also produced a story on Terrence Bynum, who was staying at Children’s Hospital for sickle cell treatments and enjoying their art therapy program. He actually sang to the camera at one point and I ended the story with it.
The day after 9-11 I became the Line Producer of a show called America Recovers, then Campaign Against Terrorism, and finally it was called NewsLine.
When Worldnet Television merged with the Voice of America, I joined the Television Enhancement Team, where I trained radio reporters how to produce TV. The first show I helped launch was “Chas Time” for the Ukrainian Service during the Orange Revolution. Whenever there was a crisis somewhere in the world, we launched a TV show to that audience.
For 15 years, I helped journalists step outside their comfort zones. I won Employee of the Year for that work. Sometimes I said it was like trying teach archaeologists how to become astronauts. Radio is as different from TV as space is from the Earth.
We were all broadcasters though…and I thrived on teaching people new skills and creating an environment where it was safe to learn.
Highlights included producing a live TV broadcast of the Dalai Lama receiving the Congressional Gold Medal and getting pictures back from the field, showing thousands of monks watching our show outdoors on a jumbotron in a Dharmasala courtyard.
At the Republican National Convention of 2004 an audience member bounced a paper ball off of my anchor’s head while she was reporting live in Hindi… and I loved hanging out with producers and crew in our off time.
I moved into an executive role when I became acting EP of Spanish television, and then Executive Producer for Urdu TV.
After years of hopping around the language services of VOA, I had found a home with the Urdu Service. I could tell the moment I walked into their newsroom that these were seasoned television producers. VOA had recruited them directly from Pakistan. It was a joy to help lead the team. We created some of the most watchable programming I’ve ever seen on VOA. I greived when I had to leave Urdu service.
In my off hours, I got a certification to be a life coach. Also in 2015, I started a mindfulness meditation group at VOA. When we were all put on admin leave in March of 2025, this Mindful Space became a place to connect on Zoom.
In 2017, I moved to the English to Africa service where I helped launch Our Voices, a panel discussion of all female journalists from across the African continent.
I was then assigned to produce StartUP Africa, a Docuseries about tech startups across sub-Saharan Africa. It became the most popular series worldwide for the US Agency of Global Media, airing on at least 200 affiliates and as in flight programming on Kenya Airlines.
Throughout this period I was also executive producer of the weekly co-production of Africa 54 with our affiliate station in Nigeria, Channels TV.
I went to Africa…Twice! First, with Vincent Makori, to lead coproductions with affiliates in Zambia and Malawi. In Zambia we reported on drought, cross-border, trading, and power outages, producing standups in front of Victoria Falls and on the Zimbabwe border. Then to Malawi (on a tiny plane with half a seatbelt) where we reported on overfishing and drought from the shores of Lake Malawi and farms nearby.
Within a year I would also go to Ghana and Nigeria to train reporters at our affiliate stations to produce non-narrated, documentary stories for StartUP Africa.
As a VOA Journalist I’ve had some amazing experiences. I know how to ask powerful questions. I know how to create an environment where people can express themselves and learn.
As a life coach, I know how listen, encourage new perspectives, and to remain unbiased – by my own preconceptions, by current events, by my own stories, and by the stories that my clients carry with them.
I know these things. I’m not always perfect but these are my values.
I hope they will allow me to continue doing meaningful work.
