How journalist Tia Mitchell presses on

I want to start by telling you the story of how I got into journalism. And to do that, we have to go back to the second grade when I completed a classroom assignment about my favorite thing: fish. I wrote about how pretty they were in the aquarium and how good they tasted when my momma fried them up. With some edits and crayon illustrations, that assignment turned into “All About Fish,” a non-fiction book that won a Young Authors Award. I consider it my first journalism medal.

My career has taken me from the “night cops” shift, to Florida’s statehouse, to DeKalb County commission meetings, and now to the nation’s capital. As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Washington correspondent, my job is to cover Congress and national politics for a Georgia audience. I want you to feel informed by my reporting and better equipped to hold elected officials accountable. It is the greatest compliment when I receive emails from Atlanta Journal-Constitution readers saying my articles helped them better understand how government works.

You may have heard that on Jan. 6, I was inside the U.S. Capitol when rioters disrupted a joint session of Congress to tally Electoral College votes. I was among a group of about 50 people – media, House members and police officers – who were locked inside the chamber when protesters tried to break in. I knew the moment was important and would go down in history, so I reported what I saw on social media and later in the pages of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I worked through the insurrection because I knew you back home needed information that only I could provide. The day’s events were scary, but I had no time to be scared. I had to do my job.