We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mireya Garcia. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mireya below.

Alright, Mireya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style. Do you have an interesting story from that stage of your career that you can share with us?

There is something incredibly breathtaking about standing in a beautiful and mature garden with flowers blooming and trees bearing fruit. These kinds of places, though, do not just appear. They are, instead, the outcome of what can be many seasons of patience, trust, and guidance. It is this thought that comes to mind when I see articles and hear anecdotes of hiring managers struggling to find qualified candidates in a variety of fields. A quick fix is unlikely, because creating the space for quality candidates to flourish starts well before they are a part of their profession.

My name is Mireya Garcia, and I am a journalist with 16 years of experience in my field. While the issue of candidate availability is complex, I know that investing in quality internships is the planting of a seed in what could eventually be a flourishing career. I know that, because I credit my internships while at university with setting me up for a more confident entry into journalism as a profession.

While at the University of Texas at Austin, I participated in two internships as part of my student requirements. Working for credit in these two very different newsrooms was an invaluable experience. My first internship was at a 24-hour news operation, and there I got to know many different kinds of personalities. I saw first hand the pressures and stress of being a multimedia journalist, and how the professionals handled that stress to make their deadlines. While experiencing this first hand was beneficial, this particular internship had a limited amount of manager oversight and felt alienating at times. For example, one employee I occasionally worked with refused to use the intern’s names— instead referring to us all as “intern”— it was described as an attempt to show us the reality of a fast paced and high stress working environment. Looking back, making the choice of using internships to “scare the weak” out of your industry is counter productive to the greater end goal of cultivating a healthy future workforce.

My second internship had more on the line. I was honored to be selected as an on-air intern for the Fox-owned station in Austin. At the time, only one student a semester was selected after going through an application process similar to what one would do as a professional journalist applying for a job. In this on-air internship there was certainly more oversight and a level of trust granted to me by newsroom management. It was my job to produce a story once a week that I would present live on location or on set of the morning show Good Day Austin. Here is where I first encountered the difficult, but all important process of story approval.

An interaction I still remember all these years later happened when a morning show manager was confused by the story I submitted for approval. He did not like that I had submitted the reporter story without the anchor intro, and very directly explained that I should not be submitting incomplete work for approval. Constructive criticism can hurt in the moment, but it is an important part of development especially early in a career.

This manager went on to explain that he strongly felt I should be working on these stories from top to bottom. In the years since, I have come to the conclusion that there are many ways to develop a story, but that day I better understood a professional workflow. This was a lesson I could take into my first job as a journalist.

When I say it may take many seasons to see the fruits of your labor as a company with internship programs, I genuinely mean a long game that is years in the making. In my case, that invisible string was nearly two decades in the making. As a student intern at the Fox-owned station in Austin, Texas, I could only dream of the career I hoped to one day have. After working in three other newsrooms as a broadcast journalist, a news director for the Fox-owned station in Seattle, Washington hired me to become a morning anchor and television host for Good Day Seattle and a local talk show called Studio 13 Live. One of the earliest reasons I was prepared to confidently take on this role was because employees at the same company trusted me enough to let me file broadcast reports on television and had the patience to guide me during my time there.

Thoughtfully crafted internship programs are mutually beneficial to interns and companies who will benefit from what could be a qualified candidate in the future, and that is the kind of investment that will sustain the long term health of an industry.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think that putting yourself out there publicly can be overwhelming for any profession. While it is important to keep thoughtful and constructive criticism in mind, it is important to keep the unnecessary noise from weight you down. This is often a daily practice for myself, and keeping the greater goals of my career in mind, is helpful.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

At the end of the day– I consider myself a storyteller. I strive to create interesting ways to give people information that will bring value to their days. In light of technological advancements, I find that true journalism is more important than ever because there needs to be a space people can turn too reliable to get the answers they need.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @seenbymg
• Twitter: @mireya_g