Northwestern University Alumni

Transcript:

[MUSIC PLAYING] MAX HERTEEN: Welcome back to Northwestern Intersections, a Northwestern Alumni Association podcast. We'll be talking to alums about their career paths and the lessons they've learned along the way. Our guest today is Isa Gutierrez. She joins us to discuss life as an award-winning journalist and new mother, and what Hispanic Heritage Month means to her. We will dive into all of these topics and more in this edition of Northwestern Intersections. Isa, thank you so much for being here. 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. 

MAX HERTEEN: Absolutely. We're so excited to have you. I've got a lot of questions for you and we'll dive into all of them. But let's just start off with what brought you to campus in the first place. What did you study? Why did you come to Evanston? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Sure. So, I knew that I wanted to study journalism. And I mean, what better place than the Medill School of Journalism in Evanston to do that? So I had originally done kind of a college tour, the classic my junior year, and visited a bunch of schools. Northwestern was not one of them, only because at that point, I still didn't know I wanted to be a journalist. I was very into musical theater, actually, and so I was looking at places with musical theater programs that I was interested in and sort of, like, was more interested in international relations, too, if I was going to do a double major route. 

And then that summer before my senior year of high school, I was like, wait, I actually think journalism might be the perfect marriage of all of my interests. I met a family friend who was studying it at another school and just a light bulb went off. And I was like, wow, I think that this could be the perfect path for me. And I scrapped all those schools that I had visited my junior year and decided to apply to a bunch of programs that had journalism schools. 

I had actually never done journalism, wasn't part of the school newspaper or anything like that in high school. So it was really a huge leap of faith. And as soon as I got to campus in the fall of my freshman year, met my classmates at Medill, and started my first classes, I was like, wow, thank goodness I took this risk because this is absolutely where I'm meant to be. 

MAX HERTEEN: Tell me a little bit about your early career path as well. Who or what was your first in for your field? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Sure. Well, my first professional experiences were while I was at Northwestern, which is exactly why I picked Medill, because there is such an emphasis on having those hands-on experiences while you're still in school to prepare you. So I started with a wide range of journalistic internships. I did a magazine internship in Chicago. I did a tech online internship that was more print journalism in Seattle, and those were my first experiences my freshman and sophomore year. 

I knew that I wanted to do broadcast journalism, but it's hard to get those experiences right off the bat, and I just wanted to make sure that was the path I wanted to go on. So those were the first sort of smaller internships that I did, but super helpful in figuring out what I wanted to do next. 

And then my sort of big break, I would say, was towards the end of my sophomore year at Northwestern, I was encouraged to apply for a program at NBC News in New York City through the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. And they have this fellowship program that's just amazing that brings young, diverse talent from universities like Northwestern to the city for the summer, to New York City for the summer. And that was really my first step into a national news network. And it was just absolutely amazing. 

And after that, I just kept doing different internships at NBC. By the time I then graduated, I went straight to New York City in a production path, also through what's called a news associates program that brings, again, diverse talent to the big stage, if you will, of broadcast news. So yeah, it really started while I was at school. And I became obsessed with the Peacock, with NBC right off the bat. So grateful for the chapter on campus of National Association of Hispanic Journalists, NAHJ, who really were the ones who introduced me to that opportunity. 

MAX HERTEEN: Talk to me about after graduating, the sort of job that you were getting into. I especially want to hear what it was like being a correspondent. What was the pace of life like? What does just your day-to-day look like in what I'm assuming is a really specific role even for this industry? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Yeah. Well, I think it's really important to note that I kind of fell into the correspondent thing, which is pretty rare because when I started off, I was on the production side. I was behind the scenes. At Northwestern, I had done the Northwestern news network. I had done a journalism residency on camera. But I concluded by the end of my time there, I actually want to start off behind the camera. 

So I started at Dateline as an assistant producer and then an associate producer, also. Worked on The Today Show on the breaking news crash team. And then actually, through a Northwestern connection, I heard from an agent who was like, let's take a meeting. Let's talk about a potential switch back to on air. And so I was about a year out of college when I decided to go back to the on air thing. 

And so initially, I went back to local news. I went to West Hartford, Connecticut. I was at NBC'S local-owned station there for a year, really, just kind of-- I mean, it was like a boot camp, up at 3:00 AM all over the state of Connecticut. It's this really unique station because it's not just one region. You cover the entire state. 

So you could be in the car for hours on any given day covering anything from fires, floods, 5K's, local political news. And that's where I really kind of got my reps in on camera. And that is what then led me to the opportunity to go back to New York City. I started back in the city on the national platform at a smaller sort of startup within NBC called NBC LX for a year. And only after that, after a few years of really experimenting and growing in all these different roles, did I get the opportunity, the amazing opportunity to be a national correspondent for NBC News Now and for all of NBC's broadcast and digital platforms. 

And that life was incredible, exhilarating, exhausting, I mean, all of the things. You're on the go. You live with a go bag ready to take the call whenever from producers to fly across the country or to drive to upstate New York to cover whatever the big story is of the day or of the week. I also had the opportunity to be in studio to help launch a bunch of new shows for NBC's streaming platform, NBC News Now. And I was added on to the team when we were starting kicking off a bunch of these new shows. 

So I helped launch the morning show. I was one of the first correspondents on that, and then the 8:00 PM show. So I was all over the place and just learned so, so much. And I think it's also important to mention that this was all happening while COVID was happening, too, right? And not to mention, like, the political landscape in this country. 

So there was so much to cover, so much intensity right off the bat, which I think was really, in some ways, a huge blessing because I got to-- it was baptism by fire. I only had really a few years of experience under my belt, but I was thrown right into it with all of these huge national once-in-a-lifetime stories. And it was really incredible and also really difficult. 

MAX HERTEEN: Maybe I won't say favorite, but what were some of the most meaningful projects that you got to work on in this role, and maybe some lessons that you learned as well? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I am so passionate about covering immigrant communities and my Hispanic community. As a generalist, I covered absolutely everything. I mean, during COVID, I felt like I was a health reporter because that's what we were all doing every single day, which was really great. But once I really got to get back into stories at the border, stories about policies that were impacting families not too different from mine and covering it from all angles, really focusing on the facts and focusing on the real impact that these big headline stories and policies had on real people and real families, that is really what I am really passionate about. 

But I also became very passionate about covering other topics like mental health and anything surrounding youth and youth mental health that's really important in this day and age. I covered reproductive rights. Those stories were very tough to cover, but again, super timely and challenging in a really great way. 

So yeah, those are some of the topics that really excited me. But I really covered everything and it was kind of like sometimes whiplash. You're covering, let's say, an immigration story one day, and then the next day, you're going to Yankee Stadium covering the biggest vaccine drive of the city. It's like really, you have to learn how to be very quick on your feet and kind of switch your expertise and which part of your brain you're using from day to day, which I think is so cool and such a great exercise. 

MAX HERTEEN: I feel like you are probably covering a lot of stories that were obviously really meaningful and important, exciting to cover. But I'm also sure that sort of like the emotional range was big, right? Like, you're covering some stories that might be really uplifting, but then obviously, it's COVID. A lot's going on politically. There's probably some pretty heavy topics. How did you just manage yourself and your own emotions going through really big swings in the news cycle? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: What a great question, because let's be real. Even though I talk about my favorite stories and my favorite topics to cover, I would say 80% to 90% of what I was covering in the day-to-day were not those award-winning exciting stories. Especially when you're starting off, you're not getting always those headline stories. You're doing the stories in what we call the B or the C block, right? They're important, but they're not those life changing, meaningful stories. So that's a very real part of being a journalist, especially in your early career. 

On your question of covering these difficult topics, whether it's COVID or politically or whatever, it was really tough. And I'll be completely honest with you, I don't know that I was fully prepared for that. I had the best journalism education but I think that in your 20's, there's so much life that you haven't lived yet, and this kind of job really pushes you into a front row seat at all of these sometimes traumatic situations that people are experiencing in their lives. 

And I don't know that I was fully emotionally intelligent enough or prepared to process that trauma. And therapy is big. I think all journalists should be in some sort of therapy, or at least have some sort of outlet where you can kind of let off some steam and process your emotions, because especially if you're an empath-- and I think so many journalists are. I consider myself an empath. I feel very deeply the stories that people share with me. And while that is a huge gift in some ways and asset, it can also be really tough because it's so hard to turn your job off and turn those stories that you've reported on off once you come back home. 

So it's something I'm still working on. I mean, I just turned 30 and I consider myself to have been a journalist since I was 18 and decided to embark on this journey. So it's been over a decade and I'm still learning what are those tools that can help me disconnect, that can help me compartmentalize and be there and be present when I'm covering these very important deep stories, but then also, to have that space to reset so that I'm ready to give my all to the next one. 

MAX HERTEEN: Yeah, I really appreciate your honesty for that because I get to talk to just amazing people across industries for this show. But really, one of the themes that keeps coming up is just the daily grind and how do you manage the moments, like you said, that aren't maybe going to make the front page? And I want to ask you, going beyond the emotional component to it, how do you just manage motivation for those smaller stories and keep your cadence strong and your discipline strong, like you said, when it might not be the most meaningful story in the world to you personally? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: It's tough. And I know that this is something that a lot, if not most journalists experience, especially when you are working for a large organization that needs you to do all sorts of stories, whether they're the most interesting to you or not. I think that the way you stay motivated is that you try, or at least I always try to remind myself that this story matters to someone. Who is that person? And think about that person. 

Because usually, I mean, 9 times out of 10, even the most seemingly boring formulaic story means something to someone. And if you can really hone in on who that is-- it might not be you. It might not be someone or someone in your community. But if you can think about that person who it matters to and means something to, I think that that is what personally keeps me motivated to give it my all and do my best, even if it's not immediately clear why it matters. 

MAX HERTEEN: I want to talk to you about some of your recent projects, and I want to start with a really meaningful piece that you wrote called "On Hard-Earned Comebacks". I'll give a tiny bit of context for the audience if they might not know. This was really a story about you appreciating the Olympics in a new way for a really specific reason. Can you talk to me a little bit about what was so motivational and moving about this year's games for you? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Ah, this year's games, I think a lot of people, and especially women, can relate really around the world. They were so unbelievably inspiring. It was so emotional to see these incredible women at all different stages of their lives kick ass on this global stage. 

And I think that for me personally, they came at a very interesting time in my life where I've been in a bit of a, I'm not going to say break, but a very big transition for me. Again, for more context, I left my job as a national correspondent about two years ago, and the last couple of years have been very different than what I imagined my life in my late 20's would look like. 

And I think that I maybe had lost a lot of confidence and I had lost a bit of hope because this dream job that I had, I did it. It was amazing. And then I had to leave it, and we can get more into that. Because of personal reasons, I had to really focus on my family and my life away from my career. And that had made me really nervous and really scared, I think, to jump back in and dip my toe back into this industry that I love so, so much. 

And to see these athletes, particularly athletes like Simone Biles and Suni Lee, having taken breaks of their own and come back and crush it like they did, it was just such an inspiration to me and I know to so many others. And it showed me that taking that time for yourself doesn't mean that your dreams have to be something of the past. It can just mean that your dreams are evolving, they're changing. And you can get right back on that horse, whatever it looks like, even if it's a new and improved version of what that looked like before you took that time. 

So that was really why it was so inspiring to me. I think it was just the timing of it because of where I'm at in my life and my career. Not to mention, I just had a baby seven months ago today. She just turned seven months old. And by the way, with my husband, who is also a Northwestern alum. So shout out to Northwestern for that. 

And that is such a huge physical and mental transition in a person's life as well. And so it was just all of the things watching the Olympics this summer. And watching a pregnant women do archery and hit a bullseye and all these different amazing things. Like, it was really awesome. And I think that it just gave me this confidence that I had been lacking. 

MAX HERTEEN: Northwestern is an amazing school and people are off doing these big things, but life just changes and people are going through transitions. I think that you really brought up an important point about being able to recharge your journey. What advice would you give to someone who might not be in this exact same situation, but who needs something of a refresh in some way? How did you find the strength and the motivation to jump back in? How did you get your confidence and your swagger back? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Yeah, what a great question. This is a conversation I have with my friends almost every week because so many of us feel so burnt out right now. And I just happened to be pushed into that deep, dark hole when I was 27, which is pretty rare. I feel like in the past, at least what I hear from my older mentors, is they kind of don't figure that out and they don't get pushed to the edge until maybe a bit later into their career. And that's part of what was so scary to me and what is so scary, I think, to so many of my friends and former classmates, too, is that we're feeling burnt out so early. 

And I think it's due to, I mean, everything we live with today, right? Social media, just this overstimulation of information. If you're in journalism, like, the fact that the news cycle truly never stops these days. And so my advice is always just, I mean, think about your priorities and whether what you're doing in the day-to-day is working towards that. It's really about perspective. But again, just being completely transparent, I don't know that I would have left my job and taken a career break when I did if I hadn't been at such a low low at 27. 

For me, I would love to say like, yeah, I just had this perspective at a young age that I needed to take a pause and reset to have a brighter future. Like, no, I held on for dear life to my job. Like, I did not want to leave that. That's what I had worked towards. That's what, even if it hadn't been 20 years, like, I still felt like I had worked half of my life for this opportunity. 

And in so many ways I loved it so much. And I worked with such amazing people. But for me, I hit that rock bottom really fast in 2022, and I talk about it in my article, but I'll mention it a little bit more here, too. I mean, it started with my husband was in an accident, a fire-related accident, and it was kind of a freak accident. Basically, he fell into a fire pit and he got stuck. He burned severely a good portion of his body. And nothing, no story that I ever covered, nothing prepares you for seeing the person that you love-- he was my fiance at the time. We were less than a year away from our wedding. Nothing prepares you for getting that call. 

And I flew across the country to where it happened, and it absolutely turned our lives around. We were these young professionals, driven, successful, just kind of like stars in our eyes, let's keep climbing. And then life happens like that and you're just like, whoa, what matters? Nothing, other than the people in your life. It just becomes so incredibly clear in that moment. 

And as awful as it was, I think that we're both, in some ways, grateful that it happened when it did, because so early in our careers and our lives, we got this kind of slap in the face and perspective that a lot of people don't get until later on. And then after that, I started having health issues, too, just from all the stress of becoming a caregiver overnight to him and just seeing someone you love in that position in the ICU for weeks and having to go through very serious skin graft surgeries and whatnot. 

And he's doing amazingly. And he recovered so, so well. So that's very important to mention. But the impacts of something like that really stay with you for a long time. And I think one thing I could have done better in hindsight is taking that time to really process it, because I jumped right into my job like a true workaholic and career junkie. 

Like, literally the day he went back home, even though we were still working on his recovery and he was in PT and everything, I went right back to work. And things were speeding up at work right around that time too with the network growing, especially the streaming side and me being one of the main correspondents in one of those roles. 

So it really just got to a point where a few months after he came back from the hospital, I started dealing with some chronic health issues that had kind of been bubbling for years. And then it got to the point where I couldn't ignore it anymore. And so, again, that doesn't happen to everyone. Like, it's very easy for me to say, yeah, think about what's important to you and what really matters, when in reality, had my body and our situation not given us such a rude awakening in that moment, I probably would not have taken the time that I ended up having to take to reassess what was important to me. So it's hard. It's hard to give someone advice. 

It's so much easier said than done to take a pause when you care deeply about what you do and when you find what you do deeply fulfilling. But for me, it really just didn't feel like I had a choice. It got to a point where I had to take a step back. And now, in hindsight, I am glad that things happened when they did because we went into our marriage and our new life as a young family with very, very clear priorities and just a very clear understanding of what matters to us. 

And no matter what happens in your career and in your professional life, your family is what's always going to be there for you. And it's always OK to take a pause if it's for your health or for your family's benefit. 

MAX HERTEEN: Thinking back to those early days in your job when you were talking about your gritting it out, it's stressful, but there's also that element of it being really meaningful, very fulfilling. How do you find peace and self-care in a situation like that where you are stressed but at the same time, you're getting benefit from the job? Like, how can you prevent that burnout ahead of time? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: That's a million dollar question. And I wish I had a perfect answer, but what I will say is that I think especially as a journalist, but in any career, the fuller life that you have outside of the work, the better you're going to be at your job. And again, that's especially true for in journalism. I think that if you're 100% about your job and your career, you don't come to it with that perspective, with that sort of background of being able to understand different people and connect with different people. 

I mean, connecting and being able to communicate with people different than yourself, I think, is one of the biggest strengths that you can have in any job, especially as a reporter, but really in any job. I mean, think about bedside manner if you're in the medical profession, or really anything else. I think that having that full life, whether it's something as simple as joining a softball rec league or a book club or having a monthly dinner with your closest friends, or saving up every month a little bit of money so that at the end of the year or in the middle of the year, you can go on an amazing trip and learn about a new culture and a new place, even if it's just across the country or a National Park. You don't have to go very far. 

I think that these are all practices that can really keep you grounded and that go a long way to protect your mental health and your life and perspective, and at the end of the day, also benefit what you're doing in your career. Because again, it gives you that richer approach. You're not just this work robot going by the book on everything. You're a real person on the other end of that TV or that article, or whatever else it may be. 

MAX HERTEEN: So I want to ask you a couple of questions before we go. First of all, it's Hispanic Heritage Month, and you've already mentioned some really meaningful experiences in your professional journey. Are there any Hispanic Heritage Month shoutouts you'd like to give? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Wow. Yes. I mean, I'll start by saying that being Hispanic, being a Latina is such a huge part of my identity. And it's really part of how I approach everything in life, whether it's my career or my relationships or my education. I mean, at Northwestern, I graduated with a minor in Latina/Latino studies, and that has really informed so much of my work as a journalist as well. 

I have to give a huge shout out to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which was an incredible organization that I became connected with as soon as I got on campus. Like I mentioned, they were the first ones who facilitated my entry into the national broadcast platform. And this article that we've been talking about that was published in August was published by their publication, Palabra. So they have just been a constant community and support system for me. And so, I'm so grateful that I was connected to them right when I got onto campus and part of the Northwestern chapter. 

And beyond that-- and this kind of also becomes advice to my fellow Hispanic young journalists and current journalists in their careers right now-- leaning on those people, those potential mentors in your field who understand what it is like to be a Hispanic journalist or Hispanic whatever your profession is. Like, my best and biggest role models have been people like Sandra Lilly, who is the managing editor of NBC Latino, or Alicia Menendez, who is an anchor on MSNBC. These just incredible journalists who I look up to who are also Hispanic, who go through similar struggles and trying to get our stories out there on the national front pages and on the national news shows. And they just get it. 

And having those people to bounce ideas off of, to share story ideas with, to talk about personal life and the sacrifices that we make and the pauses we have to take in our careers, like, that has been so, so helpful to me. So those are just a few names that I'll mention. But I do also want to mention that my Hispanic Latino friends from Northwestern, who I met on campus, those people are lifelong friends to me. And whether they were in Medill with me or not, again, they just get it. And they're the people who I still look up to. Even though we graduated the same year, I look up to them so much in their respective fields. 

My very dear friend, for example, Rocio Mendez Rosso, I met her at Northwestern and she's now a Dean of Student Life at a university outside of Chicago. And she's someone, even though she's not a journalist, like, such a role model to me and someone who I will be a lifelong friend with. And that started right on campus in Evanston. So it's not always those people who are 10, 20 years ahead of you in your career. Sometimes, they're the ones right next to you who understand what it's like to be someone like you going through life and going through your profession. 

MAX HERTEEN: What are you working on now? And maybe give us the 30 second elevator pitch on current projects, plans for the future. 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Yeah. So right now, I am working freelance, so in the last couple of years, I say that it's been a break, but I really have been doing things here and there. I mean, as a true Northwestern Wildcat, not doing anything career-wise is kind of impossible. So I've kind of been experimenting with new opportunities. 

I hosted a pilot for a kids news show for 8 to 12-year-olds. That was new for me and something I would have never gotten to do had I sort of stuck in my traditional path. So that was really cool. And now, the show has continued and they have a whole new set of hosts and everything. I wasn't able to be a part of it, but being part of that pilot and that sort of experimental phase really got me very excited about news startups and kids content, a world that I really hadn't stepped into in the past. 

I'm also writing and pitching. Really, that article that we mentioned that I wrote for Palabra kind of my first sort of welcome back into public-facing journalism since the pilot I had done was more proof of concept private thing. And it was so empowering for me to have that article out there and kind of be like, OK, I'm back in this. I'm pitching now, I'm pitching stories. I'm very interested in writing about parenting since that is such a big part of my life right now, specifically parenting as a journalist and how that informs my style of parenting, which, by the way, nothing prepared me more to be a mom in the first six months of a baby's life-- or seven months now-- than working in breaking news. 

Like, it's actually amazing how I have all these skills to stay calm in the chaos. And I had no idea that being a correspondent would have prepared me for momhood, but it absolutely has. So I'm pitching stories on that sort of thing, and also being a bilingual parent. I love being a mom so much, and I really think that that's going to be a big part of the kinds of stories that I pitch and cover moving forward. 

Then also, I'm a mom. That is a job. And by the way, the hardest job I've ever done. So I have part time help right now, part time childcare. But I'm with her most of the day, every day. And so that's what I'm really pouring my heart into right now. And I'm also a student, so I'm back at school at NYU. I am in executive master's program studying marketing and strategic communications. It's a way for me to continue to learn and expand my knowledge. It doesn't mean I'm leaving journalism because I love my industry, but it's really helping me understand how companies, how businesses work, how they think. And I think it's just another example of something that's really enriching my approach to reporting. 

MAX HERTEEN: Final question. If you could be there giving a live report on one event in history, what would you choose to cover? 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Oh my god, I wish you'd sent me an email about this one before because I don't know how I'm going to come up with this in less than an hour. Wow. I'll say that as far as events, any space launch, or the initial, like, us walking on the moon for the first time, any of those would I think would have been really fun. And I'm kind of a science nerd, even though space freaks me out. 

But I think my answer has to be I would have loved to been a reporter in Miami in the '90s. Not for any specific event, but that is when my parents emigrated to the US. And my life is what it is because of that time and because of the sacrifices that they made to give me and my siblings a new opportunity in this country. And I definitely romanticize all of it, but I just would have loved to see what it was like. I would have loved to see firsthand kind of the struggles and the pressures and the opportunities that they were facing in this brand new city in a brand new country. 

So that's like an era that I would have loved to be a part of. But I can't think of one specific event other than some sort of historic space pursuit. 

MAX HERTEEN: Isa, thank you so much for joining us. 

ISA GUTIERREZ: Thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun talking about my career and my life and reminiscing on my time at Northwestern. I really appreciate you having me. 

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