Her Story
About Tracey
My work in communications started with a love for writing and books, sparked by my mother who wanted to pursue journalism before having me and had a long career in communications. I studied communications with a focus in journalism and political science as a double major at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I completed internships at King 5 (the local NBC affiliate), Boeing's international public relations office, the Seattle Times, and the Oakland Tribune in California. I started my journalism career at the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota covering military and higher education beats, then moved back to Washington State to work for Sound Publishing covering K-12 education, general assignment, and city government for about 5 years. I spent 5 years in corporate communications at Callison Architecture (now RDKL), and also had a brief stint in social services working as a peer counselor at the Downtown Emergency Service Center in Seattle with people who have severe mental illness and substance abuse disorders. From 2023 to 2025, I worked for Mercy Corps as part of their global communications team. Since January, I've been the Indianapolis public editor, a new position where I'm a columnist for the Poynter Institute. My job is to explain the behind-the-scenes decisions of newsrooms in the Indianapolis market and hold them to account - 70% of my work is explanatory journalism and 30% is about accountability. I monitor news daily, talk with media partners including WFYI (the local NPR affiliate), Mirror Indy, and Indiana Capital Chronicle, and do outreach to the public through emails to indiepubliceditor at poynter.org and community conversations about local news coverage.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tracey
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think just diligence, resilience, and hard work. I've always been driven by mission-driven work throughout my career, whether I was a reporter telling the important stories of the day, working in social services to be the holder of hope for my clients, working at a non-governmental organization in humanitarian aid, or in my current job trying to increase media literacy in this news market. Doing things that give back to society gives me satisfaction and gets me out of bed in the morning. I'm really passionate about mission-driven and altruistic-type work.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've received is that no writing experience is necessarily a bad one, and to always continue to write and work and to expand upon your writing and stretch your skills. That's led me to do some freelance work that I wouldn't have otherwise pursued when I was living outside of Seattle, and also to work on personal projects, like writing a fictional book with one of my good friends. The key is to always stay engaged and to keep writing.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say that they should make the sacrifice, and journalism is totally worth it. The industry has changed so much since I entered it so long ago and since I graduated from the University of Washington in 1999, but we still need good writers, we still need people willing to do this work and do it in an honest way and be passionate about it. Even though the news landscape has changed so much since I started, it's still worth it. I tell them to not do what I did and start off in public relations and then go for it. I tell them to start and make that sacrifice for it, after school, whatever they're passionate about, about journalism and writing, but to pursue that. There's really no correct path - there's many paths to get at what you want.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I'm really driven by mission-driven work, and that's been consistent throughout my career, whether I was a reporter telling the important stories of the day, or working in social services to be the holder of hope for the clients that I worked with, or working at a non-governmental organization in humanitarian aid and being on the communications team there, or in my current job trying to increase media literacy in this news market. Doing things that give back to society gives me satisfaction and gets me out of bed in the morning. I'm really passionate about mission-driven and altruistic-type work.
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