Part-time Writer, Full-time Mother

Part-time writer, full-time mother from Newhouse School J-Camp on Vimeo.

By Riley Stroman

Tasneem Grace Tewogbola left her career to raise her kids in what she sees is the right way. She is a part-time writer and a full-time mother.

She is a former reporter. She is a dedicated runner. And she is the devoted mother of three daughters.

“I am proud that I am in the process of trying to balance all of these different selves,” she said.

As a reporter, she worked for the Tennessean, a newspaper in Nashville, Tenn. There she met her husband and they had their first child, Yemurai, in 2003.

She loved being a reporter, she said, but didn’t want to follow crime and violence. She hated hearing sirens and hoped she wouldn’t be called to the scenes of death and destruction.

“For me, the joy of writing came in good, creative, compelling writing, not in covering who got shot,” Tewogbola said.

After having her first child, Tewogbola moved back to Syracuse where she got a job reporting for The Post-Standard.

She knew she wasn’t going to be an award-winning journalist with a nanny at home, she said. She wouldn’t let her job get in the way of her family.

“I did at some point realize that I wasn’t going to be the kind of reporter that would happily work 10- to 12-hour days,” Tewogbola said.

She finds fun activities to do with her kids, including taking them to swimming lessons and on daily trips to the library.

Tewogbola was born in Washington, D.C., and moved to Syracuse with her family. Here she found her passion for writing. She attended local schools, and during her senior year in high school she realized she wanted to pursue a career in journalism.

After high school she graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and began her reporting career.

She also worked with the Southside Community Coalition to help the neighborhood return to some of its original grandeur and show that it is actually a nice place to live.

Another of her passions is connected to her culture. She is interested in African dancing and was able to cover a dance story in Guinea, West Africa.

Though she’s taking a break from reporting to raise her family, she strongly argues that print journalism has a future. She acknowledges the growth of Internet news. But she insists many people will always like the feel of paper and the ritual of starting off the day reading the newspaper.

She expresses faith in the profession she still pursues part-time.

“I feel like it’s a growing pain, what the economy is doing, what advertisers are doing. I think newspapers will evolve, and survive,” said Tewogbola, “and it will be just another part of a story to tell.”

-30-