WUWM has been serving the community for over 60 years.To celebrate the work that we do, we're getting to know the people who do it. Lake Effect brings in-depth coverage of news and local topics, and a part of that team is host and producer, Joy Powers.
For this segment of our Get to Know WUWM series, we sat down with Joy to learn more about her background, approaches to reporting and what makes WUWM special to her.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Every journalist has their own philosophy, their own way of thinking and their own "why" as to why they're in the industry. Can you describe your approach and your philosophy as a journalist?
I would say the main goal of my work is that if you listen to a conversation that I do, I want you to more deeply understand the topic of that conversation. A silly conversation I had was about bugs and the ways in which we have evolved our culture based on the habits of bugs, but also the ways in which bugs have allowed us to advance as, like, a species, right? When the United States was first colonized, cochineal bugs were more expensive than gold by weight because of how valuable they were. This bug had a huge impact on import and the ways in which we live our lives. You know, something you might not think about — just the ways in which bugs really affect your life, the importance of them on humanity — and I want someone after that conversation to look at bugs a little differently, to think about that a little bit more deeply.
What are some of the projects or accomplishments or just general pieces or moments that you're proud of and something that speaks to you as a journalist?
You know, I am proud of Swing State of the Union. There are so many stories that we talked about in Swing State of the Union that people just didn't know about. People didn't know that the first unemployment insurance came out of Wisconsin. They didn't know that Wisconsin was the first state to recognize public sector unions, or that we're the reason that we have primaries really in the way that we have them now. There are a lot of things that start in Wisconsin that tend to trickle out to other places, and I'm proud that we've been able to give people a better understanding of the ways that our politics have been shaped in the state, because I think understanding that gives you a good platform of understanding moving forward.
What else is a fun fact about yourself?
I will say this is my second career, which I think a lot of people might be surprised by, but my first career started when I was about 12-years-old. I was a professional actor for about a decade. The most notable thing that I did was I worked at the American Girl store in Chicago. I played Katie Kirsten, who is — Kirsten is the pioneer doll. All of the American Girl dolls have somewhat harrowing stories, but in Kirsten's story, she has to drop out of school when she's about 9 because her mom gets pregnant and she has to care for the farm. And so Kirsten, as a 9-year-old girl, has to work on the farm instead of going to school anymore. And it's her 10th birthday and her friends come, and she goes, Oh, I'm so glad you didn't forget about me since I had to drop out. Yeah, which was a reality of frontier life. But that was my career, so that's a — that's a kind of fun fact.
