Brittany Shepherd is a national political reporter at ABC News, where she covers campaigns, politics, and how the internet age has changed the news cycle. Her work focuses on profiling the characters that animate the news cycle and storylines that often fall under the radar. Shepherd has spent nearly a decade covering politics and embracing new media as a key part of her efforts at storytelling. The HPR sat down with Shepherd to discuss political journalism, covering mental health, and the future of the media industry.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
HPR: Having covered politics for numerous outlets, what drew you to political journalism in the first place?
Brittany Shepherd: I just really wanted to tell people’s stories. I never really wanted to be a journalist in the traditional sense. When I went to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I did know was how I wanted to make people feel and how I wanted to make myself feel. In particular, I felt most seen and understood when I was relating to other people — when I was making them laugh or telling them stories, hearing about their life, and finding a way to narrativize what they’ve told me into something bigger. So, I ended up going to journalism school at George Washington University, and therein, I learned that I could take that interest and channel it.
When you’re in D.C., there really is one big story that is covered in politics and that is the presidential election. So when Obama was elected, I was still in school. There used to be a tradition in D.C.: No matter who was elected president, student bodies from all the surrounding schools would rush down to the White House, chanting how excited they were. Witnessing that firsthand, being a part of that political matrix, made me feel like I could play a part in this myself. In searching for my voice and in hoping to be engaged, I found that I could tell people’s stories, and 10 years later here I am.
HPR: You spoke a lot about your passion for telling people’s stories. How do you approach storytelling?
BS: Some of my favorite types of stories to tell are of people who are not traditionally approached. I really enjoy engaging with the voter who has never met a journalist before, an aspect which really attracted me to covering the young voters.
Seeing how my older colleagues in the industry were talking about my generation, the millennial generation, I grew quite angry about the assumptions they were making about us, a trend I see being replicated in Gen-Z as well. Seeing these mistaken assumptions play out in our attitudes, political trends, partisanship, and so on, really pushed me to go beyond the traditional mold and start talking to other young people. And I think it unlocked something. It helped me explore different sides of the stories we tell, an experience, which, to me, was quite enriching and rewarding.
HPR: What would you say is one story you liked covering the most?
BS: I consider myself a below-the-fold reporter. You fold the newspapers at the seam, there’s always the large headlines, the breaking news, and then, right below the seam, are the folded stories. In fact, I think there are enough people telling you the breaking news, but I wanted to be talking about people’s stories.
Mental health storylines are really important to me. Indeed, I think they’re truly important to young people. It would upset me when mental health stories in the media would be painted with such a broad brush that they were almost wholly inaccurate. The day after John Fetterman admitted himself to Walter Reed, I felt that there was a disservice being done to that story. Irrespective of people’s politics, not enough light was being shed on what that moment meant, and on what he could possibly be going through.
There was a lot unfolding, but, for me, there was a human story there that was not being told. While the first thought in my mind was to try and speak to Fetterman himself or his family members who witnessed him go through this process firsthand, I did not think that that was the right way to approach the story.
With the support of ABC News, I was able to get four other members of Congress with acute mental health challenges and I sat down with them to speak about their experiences. It was the first time the four of them had done an interview jointly at the Capitol, underlining what it was like to suffer from mental illness and be public about it, at a time when just being vulnerable is tough. One, they were elected members of Congress. Two, three of the four members were men, and there was this whole gender dynamic of what masculinity is.
Looking back, I’m incredibly proud of how the story resonated, it was one of the first times career politicians shared their true experiences on national television speaking openly and authentically. They were telling their stories in community with daily Americans, with young Americans, sharing their vulnerability and making sure that they were heard.
HPR: In the broader context of news and journalism, at a time during which trust in journalists is at an all-time low, how would you say your work has been impacted, especially in relation to younger audiences?
BS: At the outset, I want to say that all of this is very anecdotal to my experience and the institution I was working for at the time. That being said, I have found that with younger people, probably because I am much closer to their age, there was an inherent trust that characterized our relationship. At its core, just feeling comfortable is one of the biggest barriers to trust and, as a journalist, I try to make sure that the individual I am speaking with is disarmed and feels comfortable. I can’t go to the local political rally and talk about how much the perception of the industry has changed. Instead, what I can do is give them a very strong impression so that when they speak to the next journalist, their skepticism is lower, especially when I travel to places where journalists do not usually go, like when I covered Brandon Presley’s race in Mississippi.
When speaking to people, I try my best to anticipate what their prejudices might be and with that in mind, I try to approach them with nothing but curiosity and genuine interest. I like sitting with them. If they’re skeptical or scared, I usually say, I get it, tell me what’s worrying you and I always try to give them an ‘out’ — if you’re uncomfortable, this conversation can be stopped.
It is really important for me to construct that air of comfort with people because, sometimes, voters are just trying to live their lives and are just curious. These individual stories then construct the national narratives so, for me, in the establishment of this trust, finding the voters where they are is really critical.
HPR: What do you think have been some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about the average voter?
BS: People sometimes grossly underestimate how contradictory the American voter can be. You’re going to hear the terms economy, kitchen-table, and pocketbook being thrown around when speaking of an election, but people often have a million conflicting beliefs. There are voters who are socially progressive and will vote for Trump because something in their formula pulls them towards him, and vice versa, towards Kamala Harris as well. This, I think, pushes people to make blanket assumptions: that voters they disagree with are callous or stupid or that they must not care. As a journalist, this assumption drives me crazy. People are complicated, they can be contradictory, and they can worry about democracy but also about something else simultaneously.
Time and time again, in my experience, I have seen that people’s lived experiences are so valid and varied. When you don’t talk to people outside of a certain subset that you self-select into, these biases only snowball. Therefore, I think we would do better to challenge our biases before externalizing them.
The industry is changing. I think that the influence of social media, of how information is being disseminated, of what is true and what is not, seismically changes how we engage with the information environment and impacts how people vote. Indeed, it is quite easy to stand up and create your own platform, something the Trump campaign was very intentional about. I mean, take this, when I was reporting on the election, Joe Rogan had about 15 million subscribers—a number that is probably higher now—that number is larger than the single population of any swing state. With their circles expanding, you have to keep in mind that that’s where the electorate is. So, the industry is changing as are the people it deals with.
HPR: So, what’s next, Brittany? Where does the industry go from here?
BS: I know these kinds of conversations can get very negative because people are so worried about the future of the industry. But I genuinely think there’s no better time to be doing journalism. I haven’t felt more fulfilled in my entire career than I do right now, because there are so many avenues through which people’s stories can be told creatively and with a lot of heart.
I truly believe there has never been a more fun, creative time to approach telling those stories. There are a million different ways to tell stories—to put it in Gen-Z terminology—news is so back. At this point, I can only see the industry expanding and becoming more and more interesting. The standing guards will probably change, but if you’re doing something because that is the way it has always been, that’s a bad reason. There’s nothing wrong with passion or with change or being able to keep going and standing for what you believe in. The industry is here to stay and you know what, I’m here at Harvard because I believe in the work I do and I hope you will too.
