Helping women and minorities into newsrooms since 1993
Helping women and minorities into newsrooms since 1993
Returning to her alma mater as director of athletic communications was a homecoming for Monica Lewis in more ways than one.
The Howard grad’s sports storytelling journey also began on The Mecca.
A talking-fish story in third grade and a love for local pro sports fueled the Philadelphia native’s passion for writing.
“It sounds very weird, 8 years old,” Lewis said. “But I was like, ‘I kind of like this writing thing and coming up with stories.’ From that point, I just literally focused on, um, writing, and I wanted to be a sports journalist.”
From there, Lewis continued writing through high school and college before landing leadership roles at Howard’s Hilltop newspaper. A professor’s recommendation during sophomore year encouraged her to apply to SJI.
Lewis was accepted into the 1994 class, where she interned that summer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The experience, Lewis says, gave her confidence.
“At that point, there really weren't a lot of black women in sports media,” she said. “At that point, there weren't a lot of people to look to for inspiration. And so, to be accepted into a program like this and to have some people really tell us that it's possible to do this, I think meant a lot to me.”
It was during an internship at the Philadelphia Daily News the next summer that Lewis realized the importance of newsroom diversity. Lewis wrote about the history and impact of Divine Nine (Black Greek) organizations in Philadelphia – after an original idea to criticize the city's annual Greek picnic was pitched.
“It's important to have people in newsrooms who can have lived experiences of positive things about our culture and can write about them and report them to people who, again, probably have no idea what it is,” Lewis said.
Lewis graduated from Columbia University in New York with her master’s in journalism in 1999. After what she attributes to networking and the NABJ convention, she landed a role with ESPN Magazine.
“I'd met an editor from ESPN at an NABJ conference,” Lewis said. “And I stayed in touch with her, and I literally, I think, harassed her, like sending emails and writing her letters and things, wanting to get in the door. I think that's how I got that opportunity.”
Lewis described her two years at ESPN as an exciting time but also stated she learned some hard truths about the industry.
“That's kind of where I learned also that some people might not have the greatest intentions for you,” Lewis said. “There were people who looked like me that I looked to for guidance and mentoring, things of that nature, and I didn't really get it. And so that was like a real lesson to me.”
Lewis says that diversifying her mentorship was something she wished she would’ve done.
After leaving ESPN in 2002, Lewis took a job as a senior reporter at the Philadelphia Tribune, one of the nation’s oldest Black-circulation newspapers. Lewis considers this her first senior role and has taken the opportunity to shape editorial strategy.
“I felt an awesome responsibility to make sure that whatever I wrote about was written thoroughly, accurate and all the things because it's a reflection of this esteemed institution that I represent,” Lewis said.
Lewis, however, says she noticed the writing on the wall regarding the future of print journalism. It was then that she decided to pivot. Her first role in communications came from a Black Republican representative she met while working at the Tribune.
“The industry was kind of tanking at the point,” Lewis said. “And I was like, ‘Well, maybe it won't even really be around a lot too much in a couple years.’ So my thing was, maybe use your writing and reporting skills to transition into public relations, which will probably be here for, you know, quite some time.”
From there, Lewis made the full transition into communications and PR roles. Lewis says belief in herself and her capabilities helped her to adapt to new roles and obtain leadership positions.
“If you have a dream or we have a goal in mind, then you know what it's going to take to accomplish that,” Lewis said, “Even if you don't know, you should probably know how to find out about it because you believe that you can do it.”
Lewis sees her current role, which she's held since 2023, as coming full circle.
“I think about that 18- or 19-year-old girl who was writing about Howard sports and looking at the clips that I wrote for the Hilltop 30 some years ago,” Lewis said. “To have the opportunity to see Howard and the student athletes, which really just means so much to me. … I'm fortunate to … kind of help tell their stories.”