Micah A. Bledsoe-Holland

Micah is a Detroit native with deep roots in the Midwest. She graduated high school in rural Northern Illinois and eventually moved to the wild, wild west... Tempe, AZ where she completed her BA in Journalism and Mass Communication with a double minor in political science and women gender studies, as well as her MA in Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Micah is an experienced multimedia journalist and currently works in education at a private high school in Santa Rosa, CA as a career development coordinator.

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Growing up in predominately white spaces, the younger version of myself didn't realize I was in the middle of an identity crisis until I experienced a huge culture shock on my first day of class in my first women gender studies course at ASU. In my first semester in college, I quickly learned I have an extreme passion for understanding sociology; the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society -- or better yet, the study of social problems. Not only was sociology an interest of mine, but so was intersectionality; the interconnected nature of social constructions such as race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc., and how all these social constructions play a role in the unique lives we all live.

My journalism career took me from coast to coast. I reported in Los Angeles, CA, Phoenix, AZ, and Washington, D.C. I made the conscious decision not to pursue a typical reporting job because there was something missing -- at least for me. It wasn't enough for me to write stories about the things that needed to be covered. I wrote stories from my experience on the ground covering Skid Row, racism, sexism, and all the other -ism's out there that affect marginalized communities. I realized I needed something that was going to tackle these issues on a deeper level. More so than the articles I wrote or video packages that aired on TV for a minute and 30 seconds that later disappeared from the minds of my audience. It just wasn't enough. Until recently, I've noticed that the way to have a true impact on the world is through education. 

The problem with our news cycle and media today is that too many of our gatekeepers, or journalists, anchors, and reporters are not being properly taught fundamental information that allows them to tell stories through the different lenses we all have in the world. Since I've realized this, I've consciously put myself in positions to continue the work all the journalists are starting for us by writing stories that represent all the different communities we come from. As one of the world's first and well-known Black female journalists, Ida B. Wells, would have said, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." 

Before I started as the career development coordinator at Quest Forward Academy, I worked as a broadcast journalist in Los Angeles, CA, Phoenix, AZ, and Washington, D.C. I've had experience reporting as a weather anchor and on topics such as sustainability, borderlands, and justice. I have also helped news publishers across the world with their search engine optimization (SEO) strategies by helping them view their visibility in Google search engine result pages (SERPs) and Google News.

Looking toward the future, I aspire to be the change in the world I want to see. I mean... if not me, then who?