Natasha Alford
Senior Correspondent and VP of Digital Content for TheGrio Brooklyn, NY Award Year: 2020Natasha Alford is an award-winning journalist, writer, and producer driven by the power of storytelling to inspire and change people’s lives. As Senior Correspondent and VP of Digital Content for TheGrio, Natasha covers criminal justice reform, education, politics, and culture. In the midst of Puerto Rico’s political crisis, she led a project to document the impact of the hurricanes and political unrest on Afro-Latino communities through the lenses of policing, education, and economic displacement. She interviewed Puerto Rican and Afro-Latino residents, scholars and activists to report on their experiences with racism, police abuse, gentrification, and substandard schools. She also explored how a resurgence of Black pride and identification in Puerto Rico is fueling a revolution of political consciousness for a new generation of Afro-Puerto Ricans.
- Natasha is using her award to partner with local universities to train community members, especially people of color, in Syracuse, NY (her hometown) on journalism and media. She is also using her BVBJ award to fund scholarships for three young journalists of color, and partnered with the Syracuse Press Club for the 2023 celebration and awards ceremony.
- Natasha’s documentary Afro-Latinx Revolution: Puerto Rico recently debuted on Amazon Prime and she hosted a webinar, Afro-Latinx Revolution: Puerto Rico, advocating for representation of Afro-Latino stories in the media.
- Natasha also wrote and delivered a segment about the impact of Juneteenth and the importance of advocating for voting rights in her role as a news anchor for CNN.