Her Voice Blog

Kelly and Mary Beth proudly welcome the powerful energy and insights of Tearsa Smith, Morning Anchor of WATE-TV Channel 6 News -- the ABC affiliate of Knoxville, Tennessee, to "Ms. InterPReted." Tearsa shares her experiences from the front lines of fielding, delivering and managing community news in the Year 2020, a time of massive global chaos at every level ... and how that chaos unfolds in a Middle-America market like East Tennessee, from COVID-19, to racial injustice and demonstrations, to the day-to-day roller-coaster of the newsroom with daily life.

Tearsa shares her career journey, how she managed obstacles along the way, and how she forged success from a very early age with creativity and vision. She also shares her secrets for managing success, career and life in general with a positive spirit and resilience, as well as a focus on giving to others, that invariably always gives back to oneself.

• Her early career experience and what shaped her pathway as a student and a new professional in the field, as well her early influences
• How the Black Lives Matter movement has evolved and transformed in messaging and meaning in the community over recent years (and what it means to Tearsa in her work and in her family life as a woman of color)
• How Tearsa has built a national network of fellow female journalists of color to share career experiences and support one another in ways that may be difficult for them to find in their own workplaces alone
• How she responds to viewers and how they react in different ways to news coverage 
• Importance of diversity of news sources for all Americans
• How telling stories of race in the community brings unique complexities, and how those issues are handled in the newsroom in service to the expectations of the community
• Why true care for fellow human beings really matters... but how all community members are not experiencing the same things -- and why true empathy for those differences is so important.