Meet Mylah Joseph, a Summer 2024 Community Reporting Fellow
Joseph will be doing community reporting work in New Orleans this summer as part of Lede New Orleans’ fellowship program.
By Joanitah Nakiggwe
At 18, Mylah Joseph moved from Reserve, La., to attend Xavier University for one purpose: to study mass communication (and minor in education). Now 20, Joseph speaks enthusiastically about her time so far. She describes how Xavier has broadened her perspectives and deepened her love for journalism.
Joseph is an artist and a storyteller at heart. She’s eager to learn and speaks candidly about her interests.
“I like filming,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s interesting capturing footage and telling a story the way you want it to be told.”
To Joseph, the journey’s just beginning and the possibilities are endless.
I spoke with Joseph to learn more about her interests and reasons for joining the fellowship. Here’s what I heard. Note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How does your identity impact the storytelling you do or the art you create?
It impacts it a great deal. I always want to stay true to myself [and] to what I believe in when I’m creating or writing. I want to make sure I’m still doing what I want to do at the end: capturing imagery that stands out to me [and] is very influencing and inspiring to other people.
What is a topic you haven’t worked on but really want to tell a story about?
The education system in New Orleans. I get to shadow teachers and what they’re doing in the classrooms in different grade levels. Being in those different classrooms really showed me how like, this is not the kind of school system I grew up with. I thank God for that. The schools I work with spend a good majority of that class time on laptops. They’re going on YouTube or trying to do other stuff — it’s not really being monitored. They’re not really learning in the classroom.
My teachers were on me. [They] were making sure we got our work done, making sure we understood the material. And also, thank God for my grandma — she made sure I was doing my best in school. She always put me in programs that will help further my education and help me be the person I am today.
You’ve mentioned a couple of times how influential and important certain people have been in your life, like your grandma and your mom. What is the importance of community to you?
I feel comfort. I feel like a community is people that support you and help you to go through milestones, lift weights off your shoulders, and give you reassurance that any and everything you do is going to be OK. [That] I’m here for you to go through it with and just love you regardless. I feel like community is very important and everybody needs one.
What do you want to do with your degree? How does this fellowship play into your goals?
The reason I want to do the fellowship is to broaden my skills for multimedia. I feel like being in Lede will help me picture better kinds of stories I want to tell the world. Like, I really do want to do stuff with the youth. They’re our future leaders, so being able to be there for them and push them to do what they want is very important. Why not be an advocate and voice about what needs to be done in the community? Lede will help me tell their story — tell my story — in a better light and a better picture.
What advice do you have for young people who want to go into things like writing, journalism or filmmaking? What would you have said to yourself when you were younger?
Don’t stop, keep going. Don’t get frustrated with yourself if you’re not making what you want to make at that very moment, your time will come. But just keep doing what you’re doing now. It will pay off.
Joanitah Nakiggwe, 25, is a Summer 2024 Community Reporting Fellow with Lede New Orleans. Nakiggwe works as an academic life coach at Tulane University, her alma mater. She has a passion for art, graphic design and photography.
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