{"id":20186,"date":"2019-01-04T14:30:52","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T19:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=20186"},"modified":"2019-01-04T14:30:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T19:30:52","slug":"a-voice-for-the-community-whitney-sullivan-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/a-voice-for-the-community-whitney-sullivan-13\/","title":{"rendered":"A Voice for the Community: Whitney Sullivan '13"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Whitney<\/a>

Whitney Sullivan at WLTX News 19’s headquarters<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

As an early-morning anchor, Sullivan has been nationally recognized for her dedication to viewers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

WHITNEY SULLIVAN <\/span>begins her day as Columbia sleeps. She usually settles into her desk at WLTX News 19\u2019s headquarters around 1 a.m. The office, a utilitarian mishmash of brick and steel on Garners Ferry Road, is never truly quiet.<\/p>\n

In the digital age, news is not only constant but also constantly documented, and Sullivan knows this dynamic better than most. As an anchor in the 4:30 a.m. slot, she must pull double duty keeping her viewers informed and keeping them from crawling back into bed. But the early hour creates a bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get up at 4:30, we\u2019re family,\u201d she says. \u201cThose are my people, those who have to get their day started a little earlier than everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s embrace of her viewers is an extension of her approach to journalism. In her role as an anchor, reporter and producer, she favors a community-focused approach acting as a mouthpiece for unsung local heroes and a watchdog for local concerns.<\/p>\n

Sometimes that community-conscious approach means covering national news as well. Sullivan\u2019s coverage of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, which was nominated for an Emmy, helped Columbia viewers empathize and express grief in the wake of unimaginable tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of that show because not only did we do that within hours of finding out about it, but I feel like we really presented the facts,\u201d she says. \u201cWe worked toward healing. We really got to hear from everybody, about how they felt about that, in our community. Even though it happened in Orlando, there were people hurting in the Midlands from what happened miles and miles away. We were able to tap into that and give a voice to the people and let them express how they were feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The twin desires to inform and give voice to the local community animate Sullivan\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to be a voice for the people in the community that I love,\u201d Sullivan says. \u201cIt\u2019s something that I fall more in love with every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As an early-morning anchor, Sullivan has been nationally recognized for her dedication to viewers. WHITNEY SULLIVAN begins her day as Columbia sleeps. She usually settles into her desk at WLTX News 19\u2019s headquarters around 1 a.m. The office, a utilitarian mishmash of brick and steel on Garners Ferry Road, is never truly quiet. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":20187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[189,790,2072,3331,3395],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-20186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","tag-anchor","tag-columbia","tag-news","tag-winter-2019-alumni-profiles","tag-wltx-news-19"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/12\/Whitney_Sullivan_1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20186"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}