Why They Left: Detroiters at NABJ in Birmingham
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Phil Lewis, Huffington Post senior front page editor. Photos: Samuel Robinson/Axios
👋🏼 Hey, Sam here! I ran into a number of Detroit natives Thursday at the annual National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference in Birmingham, Alabama.
Why it matters: Detroit is well represented here by journalists who grew up in the city, but our once-vibrant Black press corp is not what it used to be — partly because of the number of natives in the industry who leave to work in other markets.
State of play: "If the right opportunity would have come up in journalism, I would have stayed in Detroit," Renaissance graduate Bowdeya Tweh, deputy bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal, tells Axios.
- Tweh graduated during the recession in 2008 and got an internship in Florida that didn't turn into a full-time role.
- "I was living with my mom for a few months and I was just applying for job after job and I got an opportunity to work in northwest Indiana. Even though I was excited to leave Detroit, it was still sad because I still care about the city and I've always said I'd come back under the right circumstances."
Between the lines: Another Renaissance graduate, Phil Lewis, who moved to Maryland in 2015, says he doesn't know what it would take for him to return to his hometown.
- "I wasn't a journalism major, I never applied for the Free Press or News," says Lewis, senior front page editor at the Huffington Post. "Huff Post gave me a shot, they were like, 'You have an oddly large following.'
- "Teachers definitely told us to leave when I was in high school."