By Tracey Khan

MELISSA Noel is an award-winning independent journalist based in the New York City area who has made it a point throughout her career to tell stories that centre on the Caribbean region and Diaspora.

She believes that stories about the region and its people should go beyond headlines of natural disasters and crime and she makes sure, “that [for] stories of Caribbean Americans, marginalised groups and groups that really don’t get a lot of attention in the mainstream American news, there is coverage and good coverage.”

Melissa, who dabbles in multimedia journalism, is a very proud first-generation Guyanese American who continues to shine a light on the Caribbean and Diaspora to showcase the country’s rich diversity.

She has been honoured with the 2016 Shining Star Journalism Award for her global diaspora coverage by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and is a 2009- 2010 White House Correspondents’ Association Journalism Award recipient, where former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama honoured her.

This, she said, was one of the highlights of her career so far, “to have them tell you that they are proud of you, they’re proud of your work and the fact that you’re doing what you can as a young journalist to highlight your own people is something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.”

“Another thing that sticks out in my mind is that I was able to cover Guyana’s 50th anniversary for NBCnews.com and to be able to share Guyana with NBC news’ audience with the world, a place that I’m so proud of, it brought tears to my eyes.” It was one of the stories she did for Guyana’s 50th that won her an award.

Melissa’s commitment to bringing attention to underreported and international stories also earned her the 2016 International Labour Organisation’s Global Media Award for her work on the effects of parental separation due to migration on Caribbean communities.

INSPIRATION

There is always someone who inspires us into our passion which often times turns into our career. That person was Melissa’s Guyanese-born grandmother. She would often pick up the newspaper for her grandmother. “[I would do that] so she could find out what was happening back home and to see the way my grandmother would either cry, laugh, suck her teeth or just really connect with home through the news and I was like I want to be able to do that…for my grandmother the news was connecting her with home, which is Guyana,” she said.

Melissa studied at the Mecca of Black Excellence which is Howard University, a historically Black College. “It teaches you that your success is not just your own, it’s your ancestors, your community that you have a responsibility to be a leader and not only for America but for the world and that whatever you do you have to do it with a sense of pride and know that there are other people depending on you to do well and continue to honour their names, their legacy and it was literally the best four years of my life,” she said.

She explained that at Howard she was able to connect with people from the rest of the world, learn about their cultures, adding that there is a misconception that historically black colleges are not diversified. That is where Melissa got her start on a Caribbean radio show at the college, making her experience, “magical.”

When she started her career she took the unpopular route and went independent, that meant her challenges would be a bit more than that of reporters who worked fulltime with news stations in the United States. “When I started I thought I would start reporting and then sit at the anchor’s desk but the more I saw the gap between our stories and mainstream news, and I started thinking how can I make a difference,” she said.

“I had to hear ‘no’ a lot. They would say ‘We love your story idea but we don’t have a budget for it’. Having to spend thousands of dollars of my own money when I started off, it meant sleeping at my granny’s house if I was coming to Guyana to do a story so it was a lot of couch surfing, shooting for myself until I was able to get the stories out, and the editors from the news outlets would say ‘wow your story did the best all week’. As the saying goes, ‘there really is no overnight success’.”

BUDDING CAREER
She produces video as well as print and online stories for NBC news, Voices of NY, Ebony Magazine and Caribbean Beat Magazine. Melissa is also a contributing reporter for One Caribbean Television and The Huffington Post.

Both domestically and internationally, she is dedicated to researching, writing, producing, and editing news stories that centre on the experiences and critical issues impacting Caribbean and minority communities.

Melissa’s in-depth news coverage spans the United States as well as Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Curaçao, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, and Cuba.

She has covered a number of political, governmental and social justice stories including, the 2016 Supreme Court ruling on immigration reform in America, disparities facing black immigrants in America and the U.K., restoration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, the global Black Lives Matter movement, marijuana decriminalisation and legalisation, mental health, sustainable tourism and the effects of migration on Caribbean economies and families.

Her body of work also includes many arts and culture stories that have included high-profile interviews with celebrities like Majah Hype, The Mighty Sparrow, Tika Sumpter, Taye Diggs, Run DMC, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Cruise, Shaggy, and Kool and the Gang, to name a few.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Howard University and a Master of Arts degree in journalism from The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism, where she specialised in broadcast media and urban studies.
To learn more about Melissa, follow her work at www.melissanoelreports.com.