By Abriana Walton and Ebony Tyson, Cass Tech Staff Writers
The Michigan State/Detroit Free Press High School Journalism Program has been a valuable steppingstone in the lives of many aspiring journalists. Jenese Harris-Wilder is one of many success stories.
As high school classmates in the late 1990s at Cass Tech, Harris-Wilder and Erin Perry-Hill started Cass Tech’s newspaper, CT Visionary, which is still going strong today.
“I noticed that we didn’t have a newsletter or a paper or anything, so the only opportunity that we really had to get our voice out there was through the Detroit Free Press high school edition.”
Harris-Wilder is now a morning news anchor at WICD-TV 15 in Champaign, Ill. (Hill is the former director of the High School Journalism Program and now a freelance journalist.)
As a youth watching “the face of Detroit”—WDIV-TV anchor Carmen Harlan—Harris-Wilder knew that one day she would enter the TV broadcasting field. After graduating from Cass in 1999, Harris-Wilder majored in communications at the University of South Florida, all while interning at several news stations.
“In 2004, I started my on air career in Tampa, Florida,” Harris-Wilder said. “It was an entertainment news show, WMOR. It was a TV show called More TV 32 that focused on TV and movies. After that, I knew I wanted to focus specifically on news.”
Harris-Wilder moved into her current position in Champaign, Ill. five years later, where she had already been working for the past two years.
“Whatever you decide you want to do in journalism don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t,” Harris-Wilder said.
