Author bio:
Sedona Harris is a Video Reporter and Social Media Coordinator for Mustang News. She transferred to Cal Poly in 2024 and is originally from the Big Island of Hawai’i.
If someone had told high school me that I would willingly do the scuba on live television, I would have laughed in their face. I don’t dance, and I would never choose to be on camera.
I hated the idea of being perceived. Every Instagram post felt like something I needed to analyze, and I did it obsessively. If I were seeing this post as an outsider, what would I think? Are people judging me or laughing at me? I would rewatch stories over and over again and often delete them altogether because the anxiety of being visible felt overwhelming.
When I joined Mustang Media Group, it became impossible to avoid visibility.
MMG forced me out of my shell in ways I never could’ve expected. I had to learn to be okay with introducing myself to strangers, interviewing people who didn’t want to talk and participating in slightly cringey TikTok videos for promotion (Mini Mic Monday rejection deserves its own award category.)
I still laugh when I think back to my first time anchoring a broadcast. I had spent the entire day panicking over a 15-minute show. If you watch it back, you can hear me let out a huge sigh and say “Yay!” at the very end because I thought my mic was finally turned off (it wasn’t).
While the nerves still haven’t fully disappeared, I have learned something important: journalism requires vulnerability.
You cannot report, interview, anchor or tell meaningful stories while trying to stay invisible. At MMG, there were plenty of moments that scared me and forced me to put myself out there. Even if I didn’t want to, the work demanded I do it anyway.
Sometimes that meant standing outside of Trader Joe’s, asking strangers for interviews. Other times, it meant being the only Gen Z person to sit through a public board meeting or walking up to intimidating program directors to ask for an interview while carrying the terrifying label of ‘student journalist’.
Oh, and for the record, it’s really hard to stay invisible when you carry an obnoxious tripod with you everywhere.
Journalism constantly asked me to push past awkwardness in order to connect with people and tell their stories.
Just a month ago, I anchored a two-hour live show with Lauren Quijano without a script. Somewhere during that broadcast, she convinced me to pretend to be a bee and dance on camera. High school me would have considered that my worst nightmare. Now, it just feels funny.
I’ve gone from never wanting an online presence to barely thinking twice when I scroll past myself on Mustang News’ Instagram.
MMG taught me that most people are far kinder than we imagine. They are usually willing to help, talk and laugh with you rather than at you because, at the end of the day, people want to be heard.
The fear never completely disappears. But after awkward standups, live broadcasts and chaotic TikTok shoots, I’ve stopped worrying so much about whether people are watching me and started caring more about whether my work is reaching them.