Meet the first JAWS diversity fellow

The Diversity Fellowship signifies the power of JAWS, bringing a journalist traditionally underrepresented in the newsroom to CAMP. By July 1, we received 54 applications for one spot and more than a dozen JAWdesses answered the call for volunteers to help with the selection process. JAWS thanks the Financial Times for its generous support of the Diversity Fellowship.

Amy Stretten is a bilingual (Spanish/English) independent multimedia journalist, blogger and freelance news reporter. Stretten is Native American, from the Chickahominy Tribe of Virginia. As a mixed-race, queer-identifying woman of color, she draws from her personal experience, navigating the world through a multicultural lens, to share stories that matter but may otherwise be misunderstood or overlooked.

Stretten has a unique sensitivity to what matters to diverse communities. As the National Affairs Correspondent at Fusion (ABC and Univision’s millennial-focused joint-venture), she wrote, produced and presented on-air stories and commentary exploring identity and the intersections of race, class, gender and sexual orientation for a millennial audience. Through her writing, she connected the dots between Netflix series “House of Cards” and Native American tribal disenrollment, explained Black American Sign Language and substantiated the need for femme/feminine lesbian visibility.

In a former life, she was the multimedia journalist and television host for the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s tribal-wide newsmagazine show, The Seminole Channel. Prior to moving to South Florida, she worked for the New York Post as a New York City metro news reporter. She has worked as a field reporter for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network National News, an indigenous cable network in Canada, and is occasionally invited to be a guest on HuffPost LIVE as a commentator on topics ranging from issues concerning Native communities to top stories of the day. She also had the honor of moderating a panel discussion on indigenous media at the United Nations for World Indigenous Peoples Day in 2012. The four-hour event was broadcast live around the world via UNTV, UNRadio and on UN.org.

Congratulations, Amy!