Aisha Mitti Hicks is a multimedia journalist who is currently based in New Orleans working for Fox News. Journalism was definitely unexpected for her but she grew to love it. It was a big risk for her to just jump into journalism, but the result couldn’t have been better. Hicks didn’t intend to have this life for herself, and the irony of how this all started would have never drawn an audience in; however, as she moved through life’s struggles it really pulled an interest and assisted her in where she was going. 

When asked, “What initially got you into journalism?” she replied, “I will say this: life will take you on a journey that you never expected. I never wanted to be a journalist, this just kind of stumbled into my life. I really wanted to be a lawyer; well, that was the plan.” 

Hicks had a double major in college, one of which was communications. She did it for a while but came to realize it wasn’t what she wanted. She came to the conclusion that she either had to go to law school or go to work. From there she started to work in public relations and she despised it. She says, “There wasn’t enough writing. It was too much crisis communication and I wasn’t telling stories.”

Hicks ended up getting an interview through a worker at CNN through an event held every Wednesday. “I literally didn’t get the job because I didn’t have news writing experience. Apparently, news writing and public relations are two different things. I remember just being so annoyed because the lady interviewing me was a former Delta flight attendant. Like, how can you tell me about a news break?“ 

That interview led Hicks back to her producer, and her producer told her to go to school for journalism.“Why would I go to school for writing? That’s dumb. My producer told me because nowadays you have to shoot and edit all stuff. So, technically, it’s a technical matter.”

 From there Hicks ended up going to school in New York City, where she got her master’s degree. Her producer wrote her recommendation letter and she finally became a journalist.“I was unhappy, I wasn’t fulfilled, I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do, I wanted to write and tell really cool stories and now I’m here.” Hicks has previously worked in various places, though right now she’s based in New York City as a national reporter. “It’s just absolutely insane: just because you’re based in New York, means you can work anywhere, you know?“

Hicks’ job wants her to find people and places that have been affected by events that have taken place, like hurricanes and tornadoes, and tell stories about these experiences people have been through. 

“I’m going out and telling people’s stories about the things they’ve been through. People have to leave their homes and climate migrate because of these wildfires.”

Stories like these can really connect people with communities, and Hicks has adapted to the fact that these stories are emotional and heartfelt.

“Yes, most of the time these stories are draining. I was in Minneapolis as a general assignment reporter, which means I covered the amount of children dying from a bullet or just being innocent. You want to find the people responsible but you also want to tell a good story so we can talk to local officials about how to stop these things from happening again. I try to think about the great good that comes out of this [or] what could come out of this in the end,… [H]olding people accountable and seeking change in our community is why I do what I do.“ 

Learning about these events and writing stories about them can be really challenging but there’s good that comes out of that, and since Hicks has been to so many places, she’s gotten to see some really cool cities and states. “I lived in Iowa for two years and I hated it for a while. I always asked myself why do people live here? Why do all the presidential candidates come here first? Then, after a minute, I learned these people are hard workers. They are the people that feed us all of our pork and corn supply. The things that keep us going come from this little flyover state no one cares about. They were really the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

It’s odd how we can get into things we never thought we would want to do. How do you go from a lawyer to a journalist? Weird, right? The expectation is so unexpected for us and goes to show there’s so much more behind what we don’t see in ourselves, and what others do.

Elijah Hicks, the reporter for this piece, and Aisha Mitti Hicks are related.