Penny LeGate’s Tips for becoming a Re-purposed Journalist:
1. Find something you’re really passionate about.
2. Be willing to work really hard – for free.
3. Find a way to insert yourself into a group of like-minded people.
Seattle’s Penny LeGate just had to ask, “Where are you guys from?”‘
The TV journalist had just noticed a group of doctors wearing scrubs in the lobby of an Addis Ababa hotel. LeGate was curious.
She was on a trip to Ethiopia covering polio eradication efforts there.
“Seattle,” was the response. The doctors were traveling in Ethiopia, working at a government-run hospital, serving the poor. Addis Ababa in east Africa and Seattle, Washington are 8,365 miles apart but all of a sudden LeGate had a “local” story.
Small world.
But not so small for a re-purposed journalist like Penny LeGate. “If you know a good story, you stumble upon it. And then you grab it.” The piece about those Seattle doctors will soon air on Seattle Channel’s City Stream program. http://take21.seattlechannel.org/
LeGate, asked that group of doctors because she’s inquisitive. Her DNA has “news” written all over it. She started in broadcast news as a summer intern at Nebraska TV in 1976 in Kearney, Nebraska. She was born and raised in the Cornhusker state.
LeGate has anchored in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Wichita and Omaha. Many in Seattle still know her as the co-host with Brian Tracey on KING 5’s Evening Magazine from 1986 to 1995.
She anchored at KIRO 7 TV from 1997 til 2010. She remembers the sadness at leaving KIRO. LeGate’s contract wasn’t renewed. She describes KIRO as a collegial environment but she grew tired of the TV news business. And she
says, “I got tired of being told I wasn’t good enough.” KIRO 7 TV has declined comment for this post.
What’s her purpose now? “I’m a pipeline from a story to the people who
don’t have any awareness of my issue. She speaks all over the world. LeGate
says her biggest moment was serving as keynote speaker when Bill Gates
addressed a Rotary International convention in New Orleans in May. 20,000 were there.
The Rotary’s main mission is to conquer polio. She says her job is to
inspire them. “I tell them their story.” I tell ‘em what it’s like to be on the front lines in the war on polio. “It’s a war that thanks to Rotary, is almost over.” She traveled recently to remote Bihar, India to chronicle
the fight against polio.
“The farther out I go, the happier I am.” I love watching these people
fighting the disease, the people walking to deliver the vaccine.”
LeGate says there were no cases of polio in India last year. She smiles,
“That’s amazing.”
LeGate believes strongly in the issue of social justice when it comes to
health. She says it’s different having polio in a nation like India. “Kids in the U.S. have had access to polio vaccine for decades. Kids in India haven’t. Being handicapped in India is a helluva lot different. These people end up as beggars.”
http://www.cartercenter.org/donate/partners/archives/lions_pfizer.html
In March, LeGate will be taking her tenth trip to Ethiopia. She’ll be
videotaping Dr. Jim Guzek, a Tri-Cities ophthalmologist and other doctors’ efforts to restore sight to the rural poor through cataracts surgery. Ethiopia has the highest rate of blindness per capita of any country in the world.
This re-purposed journalist is finally following her own heart. “Everybody thinks I’m really nice but I’m a feisty bitch.” She just turned 57. “I wouldn’t exchange the gray hair or the lines on my face for a 25-year old brain.” Her work has taken her to Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Nepal, India and Nicaragua. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d see this much of the world.”
You can see LeGate’s new documentary called “Timeless Discoveries”, about
150 years of acheivement in the College of Arts and Sciences. It airs on
UWTV. http://www.artsci.washington.edu/150/sciencedoc.asp
A few thoughts from another ‘re-purposed’ journalist (formerly with the Seattle PI and now a blogger journalist for KPLU/NPR):
First, I’m not sure advising journalists to work for free is good for journalism. I think the key to improving quality in journalism is to find a business model that rewards good work — rather than turn it into an avocation and expect people to do it simply because they believe in it.
Secondly, much of Penny’s reporting appears to be paid for by organizations who desire coverage for their cause. I know Penny and I know she does good work, but this does pose a conflict of interest. It’s manageable, but is it a substitute for independent journalism? I would argue it isn’t and I think Penny might agree.
This doesn’t mean this kind of storytelling projects are not good and important stories. But the humanitarian ‘sector’ has lots of people telling these kind of stories and, at the same time, is loath to engage the public in many of the hard questions of aid and development.
Who is telling the hard stories about these efforts — about failure of aid projects, about the in-fighting among the humanitarians, the politics of poverty? Many think sending visiting doctors to Africa to do annual clinics for poor people is actually harmful — in the sense that it tends to undermine long-term, home-grown health solutions.
It’s tough for aid organizations to do those kind of stories, even if they want to. And most don’t.
The UW’s MCDM folks like to say that with today’s tools, “anybody can be a journalist.” I think that’s true in one sense, and could be a good thing — getting us past the stage where the mainstream media largely controlled the message. But doing truly independent reporting is difficult and isn’t really about new tools or techniques.
I think Penny does great work. But is it journalism? I’m not sure.
Best
Tom Paulson (host of Humanosphere.org)
Tom,
Great points but no one’s getting rich doing the kind of work LeGate is doing. Also, reporters need to know that there is indeed significant, meaningful life after news. And they need to know there are options beyond the world of just being a “flack”.
And as long as there is overlooked poverty, disease and suffering in the world, I’m glad there are journalists like Penny LeGate who find those stories, bring them back and force us to care.
John Yeager
The Re-purposed Journalist