ESSENCE Fest 2018: 9 Things To Know About NOLA's Own Sheba Turk And Why Her New Book Is A Must Read

“Finally, when I gave up on trying to do pre-med, I accidentally stumbled into this journalism class.”

“I met a wonderful mentor who convinced me to get into broadcast journalism. With the help of my mentors—one of whom was Soledad O’Brien, who paid for me to finish college— I got an internship at CNN in New York.”

“I was going to NYU, but, I ran out of money for school and then I came back home to the University of New Orleans and ran out of money again. That’s when Soledad paid for me to finish, which ultimately landed me back in New Orleans to graduate from college here. I then got a job behind the scenes writing for a news station here.”

“They wanted me to be a traffic reporter. I didn’t want to do traffic but, I took the job and would be a news reporter in my free time until I got good enough for them to recognize that I could actually do it. Within the span of two years, they moved me from behind-the-scenes writing, to traffic reporter, to morning show reporter. And then one of the anchors got pregnant, the deal wasn’t working out and she left, and I became a morning show anchor.”

“I wrote the book was because I love talking to young people and so many young women were reaching out to me, asking  about my story and asking, ‘how did you break into this business?’ They had all these questions about stuff that I had just gone through and figured out so, I was constantly writing e-mails, Instagram messages and tweets to answer them and I was also writing graduation speeches where I would share my story. One day I was like, ‘Well, maybe this is a book if I write down the whole story and everything I’ve learned.'”

“Outside of people who are not into journalism, I really talk about just being a young person and figuring out your journey. How you have to be honest with yourself, not compare yourself to others, stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and all that crazy stuff that I really think throws you off track from reaching your full potential.”

“I go through everything. How I struggled to negotiate my first contract and to value myself; how I still struggle to do that now and what it’s really like to work in this business. So many people think it’s glamorous because we’re on TV and have no idea what we actually do in a day, especially the parts of it that are hard that you don’t think anyone would have to deal with.”

“She brought me on to [the PBS special] in 2017 and that was my first national TV appearance. Hopefully I’ll be back this year!”

“The ESSENCE Fest really captures everything that the city is about: food, fun, good music and a great time. At the heart of it, though, this is not just a celebration with nothing behind it because what we do at the Convention Center is have really important conversations and talk about real issues. I think that’s New Orleans in a nutshell. Yes, we have a ton of fun but, we also have real things going on, real talent in this city and important things that people care about and talk about.”