PYG 69: Making Storytelling and Visibility Accessible to Combat Erasure with Dr. Allissa Richardson

Allissa Richardson, PhD is the assistant professor of Journalism at Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. A 2016 graduate of Package Your Genius Academy, Dr. Richardson is also a pioneer in mobile journalism, and was one of the first professional journalists to teach storytelling and reporting using smartphones and mobile cameras.

Allissa trains youth to use only smartphones, MP3 players and tablets to report news. She calls her students mobile journalists, or MOJOs. At age 25, she joined the faculty of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She served as coordinator of its journalism program, and launched and directed the Morgan MOJO Lab in 2010. Under her leadership, Morgan State became the first and only historically black college in the country to offer mobile journalism courses.

The National Association of Black Journalists said Richardson empowered her students around the globe “to speak truth to power using new media.” In spring 2012, NABJ recognized her as its Journalism Educator of the Year for her international work. In 2013, Apple, Inc. inducted Richardson into its elite Distinguished Educator program for her innovative uses of its products.

Richardson is the founder of MOJO MediaWorks. Her firm designs mobile journalism workshops for youth, educators and working journalists. Her clients include The Washington Post, PBS, Black Girls Code, GlobalGirl Media, Journalism Educators Association, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Black Enterprise has called Richardson’s fast-growing company a “feel-good tech firm on the rise.”

Richardson’s writing has appeared in Oprah Magazine, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, JET Magazine, Baltimore Sun.com, the Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune. She earned the Weinstein-Luby Outstanding Young Journalist Award in 2002, and the Freedom Forum’s Chips Quinn Scholars award that same year. And Harvard University selected her for its prestigious Nieman Foundation Journalism Fellowship to work on a project that advances the industry.

Richardson holds a Ph.D. in Journalism Studies from the University of Maryland College Park, a Master’s Degree in Magazine Publishing from Northwestern University’s Medill School, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Xavier University of Louisiana.

Our conversation touched on

Personal branding in academia and how Dr. Richardson used her brand to get on the tenure track.

How positioning herself as an expert helped her snag a Harvard fellowship and international teaching opportunities

Why she loves the freedom and schedule of academia

Her forthcoming book Bearing Witness While Black and how she landed a book deal at the top academic press

Why writing and authorship are important to her

How visibility combats erasure and why it’s important for people of color to tell their stories

As mentioned on the episode

On Wednesday March 6, I’m excited to my first ever all day virtual conference. Maximum Exposure is a daylong online event where I’ll be speaking with host journalists and experts about how you can gain valuable media exposure for your personal brand.

Join us for the conference by registering on Crowdcast: http://www.crowdcast.io/e/PYGAMaximumExposure/register