Amplifying Her Voice: A Profile on Katie Powers, Head of Content at The Conversationalist
Katie Powers always knew the path she saw for herself in her career. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Katie graduated with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and political science in 2020. Though a recent graduate, her knowledge of the communications space as a whole is extensive.
“I did a lot of fiction [writing] work, I was an editor for my school newspaper, I participated in several journalism internships and did some work in the political space, so I got to try out various career paths.”
Due to graduating during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Katie entered a tough workforce and resorted to freelance work to kickstart her post-graduate career. Her first freelance role, in addition to various one-off writing assignments, was in a marketing position with a startup that created technology geared to those who were formerly incarcerated. But ultimately, her desire to embody amplification led her to The Conversationalist,
“I’m a very mission driven person. I’m drawn to opprutnities that are not just going to help me hone my skills but also where I’m using my skills to spread an important message,” says Katie. As a media startup that brings Gen-Z individuals together to have conversations that are unifying, eye-opening and sometimes controversial, The Conversationalist seemed to be the perfect fit.
The Conversationalist, or TC as its been dubbed by its employees and community members, was introduced to Katie in October of 2020, while she was still working in her initial startup role. When she came across the company’s role openings, Katie saw it as an opportunity to re-enter the creative content space and work in an environment she was more passionate about.
After meeting with the CEO and founder of the company, Sophie Beren, Katie was invited to join the team in February of 2021, when she became a part-time member of the team as a copywriter. During the summer of 2021, she transitioned to a full-time position to support the company’s online talk show. This fall, she moved up in the company a third time into her current role as head of content.
Though her movement up the company ladder was quick, Katie expresses great gratitude for what she’s gained from the experience. “I’ve had a lot of opporutnities here to work with different people, meet a lot of different community members and develop as a communication professional,” she says.
Her experience did not only consist of further developing her hard skills within the field, but also growing as a leader and an indiidual.
“I feel like I can be someone who second guesses myself a lot and I’m sometimes afraid to advocate for my ideas,” Katie shares. “This opportunity has really helped me to feel more confident in my own voice and my own skills. Part of being a leader is making decisions and feeling confident that you can help make choices that are going to move the organization forward, so having those opportunities to practice has been a really big growing opportunity for me.”
Then & Now: The Kerner Report & Media Diversity
Perhaps before I even realized it, my interest in storytelling has always been tied back to wanting to see myself in the stories I loved, or even just hearing them from my perspective. I often think of this in terms of entertainment-style mediums -- novels, television shows, movies, and even social media. But the same yearning exists for many people in news and traditional journalism.
We’ve seen many instances of the holistic truth of a story suffering because of the messenger chosen to deliver it. Personal biases combined with the inherently prejudiced nature of almost every institution in society make for a skewed view of everyday happenings, especially as it relates to stories involving people of color (specifically Black people).
Reading the Kerner report was eye-opening, affirming, and disappointing all at the same time. Eye-opening, because no matter how much I know that racism and lacking diversity exists in most fields, I didn’t realize just how extreme it was. I read an article from 2018 in USA Today, highlighting the results of the Kerner report 50 years later and comparing it to the status of media diversity today. The article mentions that before 1960, American newsrooms were almost completely white and male. It later highlights a “then vs. now” example of diversity in media using studies and statements made by the American Society of News Editors or the ASNE (formerly known as the American Society of Newspaper Editors). In 1978, the ASNE proposed a 22-year timeline to increase racial diversity and more specifically, have the diversity of their newsroom reflect that of their communities. In 2000, when that goal wasn’t reached, it was pushed back an additional 25 years - according to ASNE officials, they aren’t projected to reach that goal in 2025 either.
It is affirming and even, to an extent, comforting to hear stories about companies and organizations committing to expanding racial diversity in newsrooms. It is even more affirming to actually see this expansion in action. During the 2020 summer protests, we saw influxes of opportunity being presented to Black writers, creators, activists, and more, as companies and organizations were called out not only for their lack of support for the movement but for their failure to uplift and provide opportunities to their Black peers in their respective industries. Though a lot of these changes may have come around under “forced” circumstances, it still resulted in the presence of POC at many more tables than before.
However, the disappointment comes in when we realize that the changes we are so happy to see have just been a drop in the bucket when you look at the bigger picture. According to a 2017 study by the ASNE, minorities make up just under 17% of newsroom employees. After almost 40 years of “committing” to bringing racial diversity to their own offices, it is clear that this initiative didn’t take the priority it was made out to have -- the same can be said for any company within media or otherwise. There is no shortage of qualified Black people or POC looking to break into the world of media. If newsrooms truly wanted to champion diversity, statistics like the one mentioned above would be a thing of the distant past.
Looking at this from another angle, perhaps diversifying each individual newsroom isn’t the path forward. Much like many other things in America and really the world, if people of color have been excluded from something, it was done purposefully and will take a lot of fighting to change. But by creating our own spaces within media, we give ourselves and those after us the opportunity to not only flourish in our professional lives but to be able to tell our own stories truthfully.
Even as my professional path shifts away from the newsroom, I will continue to make it a priority to create media that centers girls and women who look like me. One of my longstanding goals has been to launch a digital community and publication by and for young Black women, a demographic in media I feel has been overlooked. We have major publications like Ebony and Essence for older Black women, and Teen Vogue and Seventeen for teens and young adults - I hope to create something for the overlap between both of these groups of media.
Biography Assignment
50-word bio
Fatou B. Drammeh is a communications student and digital strategist based in Washington, DC. With experience in health, beauty, apparel, and the non-profit sector, Fatou approaches her work under the pillars of collaboration, calculation, and creativity — all of which she believes can come together to help any personal brand, business, or organization achieve digital success.
150-word bio
Fatou B. Drammeh is a communications student and digital strategist based in the Washington, DC metro area. Fatou originally had journalistic ambitions, but after discovering a knack and passion for social media, public relations, and graphic design, she transitioned into strategic communications, a field where she could put each of her skills and passions to work.
Fatou’s two-fold experience as a front-facing creator and as the strategist working behind the scenes has equipped her with all of the necessary skills to successfully implement fresh digital strategies in just about any space. With experience in industries like health, beauty, apparel, and the non-profit sector, Fatou approaches her work under the pillars of collaboration, calculation, and creativity — all of which she believes can come together to help any personal brand, business, or organization achieve digital success.
Although her path has shifted slightly, she remains a 2022 candidate for a Bachelor’s in Media, Journalism, and Film Communications, plus a minor in Afro-American Studies from Howard University.
250-word bio
Fatou B. Drammeh is a communications student and digital strategist based in the Washington, DC metro area.
A 2022 candidate for a Bachelor’s in Media, Journalism, and Film Communications, plus a minor in Afro-American Studies from Howard University, Fatou originally had dreams of dominating the newsroom. But after discovering a knack and passion for social media, public relations, brand strategy, and graphic design, she transitioned into strategic communications, a field where she could put each of her passions to work, while still using all of the hard and soft skills she developed through her university coursework.
Fatou’s two-fold experience as a front-facing creator and as the strategist working behind the scenes has equipped her with all of the necessary skills to successfully implement fresh digital strategies in just about any space. As a beauty and lifestyle creator with her own platform on social media, Fatou has participated in major campaigns and long-term collaborations with brands like Maybelline New York, SoftSheen Carson, La Colombe Coffee, and Her Campus. She has performed in a myriad of communications-based roles for companies and organizations like Comcast, The Juneteenth Foundation, The Conversationalist, and kanti, contributing to their teams in project management, digital marketing, full-scale social media management, and content creation, respectively.
With experience in industries like health, beauty, apparel, and the non-profit sector, Fatou approaches her work under the pillars of collaboration, calculation, and creativity — all of which she believes can come together to help any personal brand, business, or organization achieve digital success.
Book Report: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
First published in 1962 individually in national magazines, The Fire Next Time is a book published in 1963 comprised of two written works by activist and writer James Baldwin. The Fire Next Time is, due to its composition of two works, a combination between an autobiography and an organized train of thought.
The first piece titled “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” is a brief letter to Baldwin’s nephew while the second piece, titled “Down At the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind” is a lengthier, more narrative piece describing Baldwin’s relationship with the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam more specifically the Nation of Islam) in relation to his race.
In 1964, the country was at the height of the Civil rights movement, with events like the freedom rides of 1961 and the March on Washington in 1963 preceding and occurring around the time of the book’s publishing. This time period gives a lot of helpful context to Baldwin’s words and their relevance.
As a larger commentary on race relations in America, specifically, how it impacted Baldwin and those around him as a Christian youth growing up in Harlem, the book was published at a time where the media was being heavily incorporated into the strategy of the civil rights movement in order to gain more support, which in turn helped to get legislation like the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and others passed in 1964 and beyond.
The themes in this book are, of course, race relations, alongside themes like religion, family, and humanity, three topics that have a lot of overlap when discussing the Black experience in America. The 60s often feel far away, and when we look at the historical events of that time compared to today, it can be easy for most to feel as though we are so far removed from the experiences of those in the 1960s. Even taking away the lens of time, we constantly compare the north to the south, regarding the former as a safe haven for Black people. But Baldwin’s recounting of his experience in a northern city in the 1960s so closely mirrors the experiences of people today.
Black youth see the worry on their parents’ faces all the time when they enter unfamiliar situations out of fear that they may be met with the wrath of a non-Black person for being in their presence; Black people who worship struggle with the duality of racism and faith in their religious communities all the time, sometimes to the point of their demise as we’ve seen in incidents like Charleston in 2015; to this day, we see Black people of all tax brackets, all genders, all sexual orientations receiving treatment that establishes them as non-humans, oftentimes at the hands of the people who are supposed to be protecting that humanity. Baldwin’s words from almost 60 years ago show that though we may have come a relatively long way, there’s still much more to be tackled when it comes to Black liberation.
Cover Letter Assignment
It all begins with an idea.
Dear Stay Tuned Team,
Hello! My name is Fatou Drammeh and I am a senior print journalism major with a minor in Afro-American studies, studying at Howard University in Washington, D.C. I am writing to apply for the Social Media Producer position at NBC News Digital’s Stay Tuned.
One of the most important aspects of journalism is its role in informing the masses. As society continually evolves, the way our news is distributed has done the same. Social media is an integral part of life in today’s world, and though I’m studying print journalism, I’ve taken the knowledge I have of traditional news and have been able to apply it to social media reporting and producing.
Throughout my time in college, social media strategy and management have become some of my best skillsets. With roles ranging from public relations and marketing intern to content and copy manager, many companies in varying industries have taught me my way around the digital space, specifically on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. In particular, my role as content and copy manager at Gen-Z media platform The Conversationalist trained me to stay on the pulse of what news is trending and going on in the world and to bridge visually appealing media with compelling copy to create viral content.
Generation Z has a special appreciation for quality content, and the first step to displaying that quality is through video production and editing. For campus organizations like Spotlight Network, The Hilltop, Hot at Howard Social Source, and more, as well as a multitude of clients through my role at communications firm CURA Strategies, I’ve had experience in creating both short and long-form content for digital platforms in the form of Instagram Reels, TikTok, IGTV, and YouTube. My experiences range from pre- to post-production, giving me the ability to contribute during any part of the video process.
Through all of these roles and projects, among others, I have not only learned hard skills like social media management, content strategy, video/graphic design, and copywriting - but also the importance of consciousness, collaboration, and clear communication when working within this space. With the opportunity to enter the role as a social media producer for Stay Tuned, I hope not only to gain more knowledge in digital media and journalism but to also contribute my passion for communication and sharing stories with the world - I hope that this passion and thirst for knowledge shines through in my work and charges you to give further consideration to my qualification for this position.
For additional information about my background and skillset, I’ve attached my resume along with my contact information. Thank you for your consideration and hope to speak with you soon - stay safe and well!
Sincerely,
Fatou Drammeh