Chanel Stitt speaks to The Voice about change, the digital age, and skills learned along the way

Chanel Stitt’s Voice staff photo from 2017. Voice file photo

By Willow Symonds
Staff Writer

Chanel Stitt works as a Business Reporter for the Detroit Free Press, but her first step into journalism was here at The Washtenaw Voice. While attending WTMC, WCC’s on campus high school, she worked as a contributor and then a staff writer, winning an award for her feature story about the success of a reading-to-barbers program.

However, according to Stitt, quite a few things have changed since her graduation in 2017.

The most noticeable difference is the newsroom itself, having moved location to the Student Center almost two years ago. Stitt admired the new room for the first time on Friday, Feb. 17 – especially her Michigan Community College Press Association award hanging on the wall – before giving a talk to the current Voice team.

When speaking to current members, she noted another change: how the digital age impacts journalists. Six years ago, Stitt and her fellow Voice colleagues focused on traditional reporting through writing and photos, with the website being their only technological engagement.

This is no longer true for The Voice or for Stitt. She now updates the Detroit Free Press’ official TikTok account, posting several times a month related to current events and feature stories related to the metro area.

Stitt says their viral TikToks are usually “the most bizarre.” As an example, she pulled up the TikTok account on the newsroom’s TV and showed helicopter footage of a man down below shooting at the aircraft, which got two million views.

Stitt began her online content creation as a hobby, and she applied these skills to help shift the Detroit Free Press into multimedia. She uses the TikTok platform with the purpose of reaching younger generations, who may be less likely to search for their website or print paper.

“A lot of media outlets were analyzing who was engaging with their news, and they weren’t including Gen Z at all,” Stitt said. “I definitely wanted to change that.”

When not making TikTok videos for a living, she writes about minority-owned businesses in the metro Detroit area. These stories range from 50-year-old floral shops to cafes adding flowers to their menu, from independent clothing retailers to vegan soap stores hosting candle-making classes.

A student asked her how much she knew about business before starting this beat, and Stitt answered that she knew “almost nothing,” but this never became an issue. She doesn’t have to understand finances or economical issues to focus on the people behind the business and their impact on the community.

One of her favorite aspects of her career is “making an impression on readers.”

“I love when more people go to a small business because of what I wrote,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll report on a business somewhere and other [news organizations] come out of the woodworks and report on the same business themselves.”

Another student said, while their question might be cliche, they wanted to know Stitt’s number one advice for anyone pursuing the journalism field.

“I could just say the cheesy, ‘Always ask questions,’ but I think the better advice is [about] learning new skills,” Stitt responded. “When I was a general reporter and wrote breaking news, I always read a bit about the topic before writing about it. … I often learn as I go.”