At the age of 25, Malik Wilson, co-host of “Show Me St. Louis” on KSDK Channel 5, seems to have mastered the art of drafting his own destiny.
Before entering the news business, Wilson was a wide receiver with a Canadian football team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. A torn hamstring, just months into the game, motivated him to pursue his first love, mass communication.
While attending North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, Wilson interned with the school’s radio station before going off-campus to intern with 107.5 KZL FM radio station and, later, WLXI TV, a Christian television network in North Carolina, his home state.
Wilson was prepared with the internships under his belt when offered a job as a general assignment reporter with KX News in North Dakota. Wilson became a television news reporter right before the coronavirus pandemic started to spread around the globe. Although Wilson said he has a passion for “hard news,” intense and repetitive COVID coverage prompted him to reevaluate his priorities and perhaps change his career path.
“In the midst of COVID, I had to dig deep and ask myself ‘what makes Malik happy?’” he said.
Wilson was one of the panelists for the Oct. 7 viral panel discussion, “We Live Here: Black Journalists Covering Race, Identity & Culture,” hosted by St. Louis Public Radio. Wilson and this writer were joined by Lauren Brown, host and lead producer for the “We Live Here” podcast, Andrea Henderson, the race, identity, and culture reporter for St. Louis Public Radio, Camron Rhodes, founder of “Voice of The People News” and Gabrielle Hays, communities correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. Veteran broadcast Jade Harrell, director of On-Demand Content & Community Partnerships for St. Louis Public Radio, moderated the discussion.
“I was feeling a little overwhelmed talking about our hardships, trials, and tribulations. So, I focused on stories that left people feeling less despair, maybe even hopeful.”- Lauren Brown, Producer of St. Louis Public Radio’s “We Live Here” podcast.
The show’s goal was to give journalists of color the chance to discuss the opportunities and challenges in covering news that disproportionately affect people who look like them, such as the pandemic, police brutality and urban crime.
Wilson described what truly makes him happy as a lifestyle morning show co-host in St. Louis during the discussion.
“I’ve been in the hard news world dealing with COVID, politics, and all that stuff. It’s hardcore,” he said. “Here, being with ‘Show Me St. Louis, ‘ it’s more so positive news. We highlight food, businesses, and events; things that help people get away from the harsh realities of life.”
In North Dakota, what Wilson described as a true “Red State,” he said he often found himself lumped into the category of the “mainstream media” engaged in fear mongering and over-dramatizing the virus even while North Dakota’s COVID death numbers were escalating. Unlike most news stations that went virtual for most of 2020, KX News reporters were in the studio a couple of months after the virus started to spread. The atmosphere and attitude toward the pandemic challenged Wilson’s sense of value.
“In a sense, I wondered if my higher-ups really cared about my well-being,” Wilson recalled while also sharing his feelings about some of his viewers. “Despite the high death toll, people looked at you crazy if you wore a mask. It was like, ‘why are you bringing that negative vibe in here?”’
Determined to redefine his career, Wilson put together a demo reel of positive, upbeat stories he’d done at KX News. After uploading the video to YouTube, he received a call from KSDK producers asking if he’d be interested in joining the “Show Me St. Louis” team. He was, and, in short order, he did, joining KSDK in July.
Andrea Henderson’s biggest challenge was trying to find balance in a fast-changing world. As the pandemic spread, she heard talks of layoffs at the radio station. When her immediate editor was let go, she feared she’d be next. Henderson decided to redirect her fears into her work. She recalled how she drafted a to-do list for work.
“I woke up early one morning and jotted down a whole lot of ideas: new ways to talk about COVID and the protests in different, more nuanced ways,” she said.
Henderson admits covering COVID, police brutality, and the ensuing protest was challenging at first, but it was the aftermath of George Floyd’s death that strangely lifted her spirits:
“The protests started to invigorate me a little bit because I saw what was happening with my people and I saw other people (nonblacks) stepping in to help,” she said. “I knew George Floyd’s death and COVID led to a different outcome. People were sitting at home, isolated. Everybody was watching TV and social media. Seeing so many people rise up encouraged me. It was like ‘OK, Andrea, you can do this!’”
Lauren Brown, 24, said she had difficulty separating herself from the people disproportionately suffering from COVID-19 and police brutality. Her paternal grandfather succumbed to the virus in June 2020. The Chicago native has no immediate family members in St. Louis. She wondered who’d be there for her if, for instance, she got infected while covering a protest. Brown turned those worries into fodder for future stories.
“I started focusing on things I needed and what I felt other families needed, like black mental health and family wellbeing,” Brown said. “I was feeling a little overwhelmed talking about our hardships, trials, and tribulations, so I focused on stories that left people feeling less despair, maybe even hopeful. Talking about those things lifted a heavy weight for me.”
Brown said she was pleased with the “We Live Here” discussion. Despite the challenges of an ongoing pandemic, societal atrocities, and disproportionate injustices, all the panelists spoke lovingly of their roles as black journalists with self-imposed mandates to represent, serve and inform black audiences during these troubling and transformative times.
Sylvester Brown Jr. is The St. Louis American’s inaugural Deaconess Fellow.
