An episode for your weekend: Tamika Smith, Local Host of All Things Considered, WAMU- Washington D.C.

She talks about the impact of her heritage and her passion for storytelling, which go hand in hand

It was a pleasure to speak with Tamika Smith about her experience in local public radio and her career in both print journalism and radio. Tamika is the host of the local edition of All Things Considered, where she says they both ‘take care of business’ and try to have fun too.

Below is an excerpt from our interview, with quotes edited for clarity and length. I hope you’ll listen to the episode too.

You're of Caribbean descent. Is there anything in your family or heritage that lends itself to telling stories?

Oh my gosh, is there anything? Everything.

I identify as Haitian American. So, there is so much goodness in that gumbo of culture that allows me to be able to tell stories and to have empathy when telling other people's stories.

I remember growing up and we would act out stories and talk about 'this is what grandma did. And this is what dad did.' And we would just act out those stories.

In the Bahamas, we speak English, but it's the Queen's English. It's so colorful. One of the running themes between both sides of my family: We laugh, we have fun. Even in sad times, we know how to connect with one another and cheer each other up.

My culture allows me to be able to share stories, but to have extreme empathy for others as well. Hopefully, that identifies with the audience.

I can tell you that when I do talk to listeners in the region, they often tell me that they feel like I'm talking to them. They feel better when they hear me come on the air. And I think that has a lot to do with the way I was raised and a lot of the laughter that was shared at our kitchen table and both homes

Can you take us through a show day and what you do and how the show comes together?

There's a newsroom meeting at 9 a.m. every day. And in that meeting, we decide on what stories we want to air. It could be stories that we've been working on already over a series of 3 or 4 months that are ready to go to air. We do the finishing touches on those, or it could be a story that's happening that day.

It's really what's news of the day kind of thing. And what we're also focusing on is long-term. It could be a story that needs to be tracked, a story that needs my eyes. I want to look at it just to see if there are any things that I have questions about, anything that I can ask my producer about. May producer is amazing, Kayla Hewitt, and she will provide the copy. I'll look over it. If I have any questions, she'll address them. (It might be) can we make this more concise?

What a show day looks like is totally different than what my day looks like, because I'm always looking at news from all perspectives, not just what's happening locally. So, it's a combination between looking at what's happening in the world, what we're looking at, maybe pitching stories that could help fill that gap. But it's always a constant circulation of being informed, knowing what's going on. How can we address it? How can we add some clarity? And we just do that on a regular basis.

You won a number of awards for a series that you did on sickle cell anemia. What was this series and why was it important to you?

Since I wrote the story, there's been so many developments around sickle cell in the medical community and in the science community. So, it's amazing to see that there's been this development. But at the time, when I wrote the story, there was a major gap that wasn't being filled specifically in this county in Maryland, Prince George's.

The way that sickle cell works is that you'll go through a crisis of the body. What do I mean by a crisis of the body? Well, normally your blood flows through your body. It's the way it works. But for people who have sickle cell, they experience a form of a traffic jam of their cells and that triggers a crisis. The patient is looking for relief from that pain.

At the time when I wrote the story, the people living in Prince George's County, were the highest number of people being affected by sickle cell in the state of Maryland. They had to travel an hour outside of their home just to get comprehensive sickle cell treatment.

When you have sickle cell, you don't want to just go to an emergency room. You want to go somewhere where someone actually knows about what you have. A lot of places where they live didn't have doctors who are knowledgeable about what they were going through. And this is why it was so important.

The catalyst for the story was my sister passing away in 2016. I just remember going through this as a child and the pain and the suffering that she went through, and her passing away and knowing that what she went through, whether it was at the hospital, the fights my mother had to have with medical staff for being negligent, and so many different things that she went through, this story was not unique to Florida (where I grew up).

What happened to our family was not okay. And then to know that it was happening years later in Maryland, I was like, there needs to be an investigation into this.

There's so much work that has been done since I did my series, but it was really good to know that I was able to shine a spotlight to help people in my community … And there's still more work to be done.

Tamika had a lot more within this answer, which you'll learn about if you listen to the full episode

You've done some things related to your family history before. I found a first-person narrative that you did in 2007 about your relationship with your grandfather from Haiti and how that changed after watching a reality show about alcoholism. This was when you were at NPR.

What's it like to do stories that have a family connection?

I remember growing up in a time when what was being taught in journalism was that you don't include yourself. You're supposed to be objective. You're supposed to step away from the story to be able to do a story effectively.

And I think that that way of doing journalism has transformed. From my perspective, it's transformed in a good way, because it says that I went through it, therefore, I am someone that can speak on it, I am an expert in this matter.

I love the ability to be able to say, hey, I've been through it. So, I can talk to you about this story.

It is a delicate dance. When I was going through the story talking about sickle cell, when I was interviewing a lot of the subjects in the story, it was really difficult because I could feel their pain in a real way. But it also informed how I approached the situation. It informed how I asked questions, but it didn't change. the information that needed to be investigated or the information that needed to be shared.

Please subscribe to this newsletter if you’re not subscribed already. And follow us on Twitter , Instagram, or Bluesky. Thank you!