Alum
Kara Kenney
Helping the community through investigative reporting
Kara Kenney, BAJ’01, investigative reporter at WRTV Indianapolis
“When I graduated, I had no job. I had sent out probably over 100 resume tapes — and back then they were VHS tapes. That was really stressful for me, because I'm very much a planner.
I finally got a call back from a TV station in Wausau, Wisconsin. I think, at the time, it was market 136 out of 200 markets. And I went up there, interviewed, and took the job. I really had to throw out a very wide net to find that very first job. But once I had that first job, it really helped pave the way for the rest of my career.
There are at least three or four laws that have changed because of my reporting. And to know that my work has made a difference in the lives of people in our state means everything to me, and that's the thing I'm most proud of.
I've had a lot of failures and roadblocks. I would say one of the hardest things about being an investigative journalist is that you're not everybody's friend. A lot of times you're uncovering things that people don't want to be uncovered. I like people to like me, and I like people. So that's hard. At the end of the day, you're just doing your job, and they're just doing their job. And that's one thing that has really helped me get through it.
Another really hard thing is that I'm only one person. There are a lot of people in our community that want their stories told. It's hard because I can't help everybody, and I can't do every story.
Sometimes when things get rough and people are giving me a hard time, I think, ‘Well, I'm doing this because I'm this person's voice,’ or ‘I'm speaking up on behalf of the taxpayer.’ You have to think, ‘If I'm not doing this, nobody will.’”
Written By Ellie Albin
Photos By Caleb Good