Spotlight: Morgan Doyle
In high school, Morgan Doyle was the editor of the yearbook but she fell in love with sports journalism after writing a few columns for her school’s newspaper. Her early professional goals were to be a sideline reporter or an MLB beat reporter.
Doyle continued to focus on sports journalism until her junior year of college. At this point in her life, she realized how competitive the sports market is and realized that she didn’t want to move far from family.
“I kind of had to do a priority check,” Doyle said. “Do I want to travel all over and try to make it big or do I want to stick close to my family? That’s where my goals are now, and it’s why I switched to lifestyles and news reporting.”
When Doyle entered her senior year she got an internship with the News-Press NOW in St. Joseph Missouri. This internship that started as doing one story a week turned into a huge opportunity upon graduation.
“My boss pulled me in his office one day,” Doyle said. “He said, ‘Our main anchor is leaving, we’d really love to keep you and try you out with it.’ You know an anchor job right out of college, I didn’t think I was going to get that anywhere else.”
For Doyle, being a woman in her line of work has meant being confident and determined to discover big stories and cover them to the best of her ability. She just wants to do her job and do it well.
“Most female journalists that you see are pretty determined,” Doyle said. “It’s more of a male industry but you see more and more women going into it who hold their own and do their jobs and are doing awesome!”
Doyle believes that her determination and drive for her career come from the fact that she was a student-athlete. Growing up she was inspired by USA’s Olympic gymnast teams and other athletes. Now, as a journalist, she looks up to the unnamed women who do their job every day.
“I’ve picked out some of my favorite national reporters,” Doyle said. “They all seem super composed. Right now, some of them are in Ukraine and some are in Washington (DC). They’re covering this crazy event that’s happening and they just keep their composure so well. They make the story so easy to understand, and they get you the details, and they stay calm while doing it.”
As a journalist who has switched her vision and goals she thinks it’s important for up-and-coming journalists to not limit themselves to one realm of journalism.
“I was dead set on doing sports for the longest time,” Doyle said. “A lot of thoughts went through my head when I wanted to start changing career paths. I mean I got a news anchor job right out of college. If I wouldn’t have been okay with shifting over, I wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity that I received.”
Doyle will be a speaker at the MCMA spring conference. She will be hosting a break-out session about what a normal week for a news anchor looks like.
