What if I Am The Niche?

I'm trying to imagine a life in journalism where I can make room for my full authentic self, and not just my byline.

When I first started Finally, I Can Talk, it was just a space for me to put thoughts into the world. As a legacy journalist, writing freely is something I seldom get to do, and I have so much to say.

I feel that I live as a walking oxymoron, at times. I’m a fiercely opinionated person working in journalism — a field where an opinion is typically treated as a liability instead of a strength. I am also a neurodivergent Black woman journalist working in a white, male dominated field. With that, not only is my opinion shunned out of fear of “blurring the lines,” but my very being exists right on this “blurred” line.

And while it’s tiring, I wouldn’t trade being a Black journalist for anything. We are some of the best in the business, and I know that so many of us have a dream of being released from the shackles that is the Black existence in a legacy newsroom. That’s what I’ve been thinking about as I near the end of my time at my current newsroom. Black journalists spend a lot of time thinking about who we can’t be. We can’t be opinionated, we can’t be loud, we can’t be too proud of being Black, we can’t be angry, we can’t be advocates. But for the first time in my life, I have the option of thinking about who I can be, and what this space, Finally I Can Talk, can be.

I’ve thought about a few things. Maybe I’ll talk about reality TV on here? Or maybe I’ll just start going to different local council meetings in the Atlanta area and get back to my roots as a journalist out in the streets. I’ve also wondered: how can I get to a place in my career where I stop pretending to be neutral but still do the work of journalism?

The way journalism defines neutrality is flat, two dimensional, and not built for people like me. It gets flattened to this: where if you have an opinion on something that doesn’t match the majority, you’re an advocate (a dog whistle for journalists of color, mind you) for policies that some deem dangerous. If you agree with the majority, then the minority sees you as a threat. Either way, you’re not to be trusted as a reporter because you “let your opinion show.”

That’s the box that I’ve been shapeshifting in for the last six years. It may be time to accept that I’ve outgrown the box and I need to step outside of it.

What if I could just do what I want as a journalist? What if I can go out, be clear that I want to go to city council meetings, State House hearings, protests and more — report on what I saw, shared my perspective through the lens of my lived experience, and still listen deeply? have a perspective on what’s happening, but still be open to listening to everyone? What if my existence as a Black woman who cares about collective liberation wasn’t treated as bias, but as truth? What if I could talk about politics one day and female rappers the next, because my life has always had room for both?

What if I didn’t need a “niche” at all? What if I am the niche — and I could pay all my bills by being it?

That’s what I’ve been thinking. Over the past few days, I’ve been figuring out how I can make this possible. I’m met with lots of tensions in my life — I want to build an authentic brand that I can sustain myself on. That takes money and sacrifices to do — but I’m losing my only income while trying to build up another. It’s a lot … but I guess we don’t do this work for the money. We do it because it’s necessary, and we figure out how to sustain ourselves afterward.

Watch this space … something is coming.