Career Champion: Tori Whitley-Berry
Continuing with my favorite series: Career Champion! One thing I love is meeting incredible, strong, beautiful, courageous and wildly talented, smart, innovative, entrepreneurial boss babes, chief chicas, inspiring women. Every month, I'm going to spotlight one of these incredible role models and share a little bit about what makes them amazing.
I have known Tori Whitley-Berry since my early days at TCU. She was a wonderful mentor and guide throughout college and I’m so excited to have her as January’s Career Champion. Tori has led an inspirational career - I’ve always admired her hard work, determination and focus to achieving her goals. Today, she is a director and producer for Morning Edition, a live radio show. Read on to hear about Tori and get inspired for 2020!
1) You are a kick-ass journalist working with NPR in D.C. One thing that's constantly inspired me about you is your hard work and determination - even when you woke up in the middle of the night to work. Can you walk us through your career and how you landed your current role?
Why thank you I think I’m pretty kick-ass, too.
So, the importance of telling authentic, honest stories has kind of been taught to me since day one: My grandfather retired as the longest-standing Associated Press national bureau chief in 2009. But he didn’t help me get into the industry. In fact, I applied for a big internship with the AP after graduating college, made it to the final round and didn’t get it. That was along with SO many other rejections for jobs, internships and fellowships I received that year.
So instead, I went the public radio route. I interned with KERA – Dallas’ NPR member station – the summer before graduating college. Then I went home to Florida with no plan and a list of job applications I got rejected for. While I kept applying for public radio jobs at home, I freelanced at my hometown NPR member station, WFSU, in Tallahassee, Fla.
I first got my foot in the door at NPR as a production intern for All Things Considered – NPR’s afternoon daily news program – on their weekend staff. WATC (Weekend All Things Considered) shaped me into a public radio producer. They invested in me, saw potential in me and fostered that potential. Within two weeks, I was producing content for the show.
After interning, I temped at NPR across the network for 11 months. I worked every holiday (still kind of do) and started working the overnight shift at Morning Edition and continued applying for permanent public radio jobs both in and outside of NPR. I kept a list of all of my rejections so I could look back on them later and applied for 18 jobs before getting offered a permanent one. I became a production assistant for Morning Edition in November 2017.
Since then, I’ve produced and edited stories around the country and oversees, I’ve directed the most-listened-to radio program in the country, as well as directed special coverage of some of the most pressing national news for NPR. I’m still learning and trying my best to continue kicking ass along the way. I’m still working nights, this job is rarely easy and it takes A LOT out of me. But I see my job as important and necessary. That means a lot to me.
2) When did you know you wanted to work in journalism?
I interned in D.C. the beginning of my senior year of college at a national paper. I quickly realized that wasn’t for me. I learned a lot there and got to do some of the coolest things like chase down congress members at the Capitol for the congressional reporter. I also had a crisis about whether I was really cut out for journalism to begin with, despite the fact that I had been studying it all through college. But one of my colleagues at the newspaper suggested I look into public radio since I worked at my college radio station.
When I interned at KERA, I fell in love with it instantly. I’m meant to be a journalist, and it’s this kind of journalism that I’m best at.
3) I constantly see you go on impressive interviews and meet some of this country's great leaders and thinkers. What has been your favorite experience/person to interview?
I don’t know if “favorite” is the right word, but one of my most memorable reporting trips was going to Broward County, Florida to report on the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting one year later. It was a tough trip to cover. It’s very clear that not just Parkland, but that entire county, is still living, breathing and thriving despite that unspeakable horror. We had a lot of ethical questions to tackle in regards of reporting about such a tragedy one year later. I’m really proud of the work we did, and I learned a lot about how gun violence affects a community, both in a place like Parkland where it’s a horrific anomaly and in places like South Chicago where it’s heartbreakingly a part of near daily reality.
4) You just become an international journalist and traveled to Iran - holy cow. What was that experience like?
Incredible. Hard. Exhausting. Revealing. And familiar. I had this idea that I would get off the plane in Tehran and be in this different world isolated from everything else. And yes, Iran’s history and culture are different from the U.S. Those differences need to be respected and reported accurately. But Iran isn’t a different planet. There are so many more experiences we can relate to rather than differentiate. I think our reporting showed that.
5) What advice would you give to any young woman looking to start a career in journalism?
This job is hard, and you are so capable of doing it. Make some close friends who aren’t journalists (or be like me and marry someone who isn’t) so that you have someone to separate you from the grind when you need a break.
6) What is the most impactful story or lesson from your career?
First of all, I have SO MUCH I still need to learn.
That being said, I’m going to go with a big lesson I’ve learned so far. There are core human experiences that we can all relate to. Report on the important cultural, historical and social differences between people, especially if those differences create oppression. But don’t create a sense of “otherness” over people you assume are drastically different than you. That can further create oppression, but it also creates a barrier that prevents understanding, not just for you but for your audience. Find those universal experiences of being human that we all understand and reveal those experiences through your reporting.
7) Where do you see your career going in the next few years? What's your big aspiration?
Funny enough, I can’t imagine my life in say, the next five years. But I can see the end goal. Ultimately, I want to be an executive producer of a national news show or investigative podcast. That all depends on how much time I spend working the daily news grind, which relates to that five-year plan I know nothing about…
8) Go back to college graduation: what would you tell yourself?
Calm down. Seriously. Calm down. You’re taking everything, especially yourself, way too seriously.
(I would also tell my current self that. Like I said: I have a lot to learn.)
9) How do you find inspiration?
I listen to longform podcasts, sometimes twice. Once for the narrative and the second time as a sound producer. I like listening to work I never get to do, meaning more longform style journalism that takes months if not years to report on.
Listening to podcasts on my downtime…I’m just too #onbrand for my own good.
10) Who is your role model?
My spouse. He strives to connect with everyone he meets, and I want to be more like that. Connecting with people is an integral part of my job and doing it all day (and night) exhausts me. It makes it very difficult for me to do that in my personal life. Such is the life of an introvert in a HIGHLY extroverted career.
Also, my cat. He doesn’t do shit all day and lives the absolute best life. I pray I reincarnate as a house cat.
Rapid Fire
Favorite self-care practice: Uhh…a face mask sometimes? Oh, and I’ve recently gotten into barre.
Favorite place to vacation: New Hampshire in the summertime and the Florida Keys any time of the year
Favorite meal: My mom’s homemade lemon chicken
Favorite book: Dawn by Octavia Butler (aka: The Queen of Science Fiction)
Favorite phone app: Twitter definitely. It’s hilarious.
Best way to spend a Friday night: I work nights. So you’ll only find me sleeping or being a total vegetable on the couch watching Netflix on a Friday.