Karimi recently published her first personal essay about the conflict that she experiences between her race, her Kenyan nationality and being the mother of a young Black son born in America.
“It was the hardest story I’ve ever had to write,” she said. “It’s much easier writing about other people!”
We recently talked to Karimi about her career and how she finds the people featured in her stories. Here’s what she told us:
Finding unique angles on news stories: “When I’m first assigned a story, I search social media to see what people are saying about the topic or if there’s one particular concern that people are focused on. Based on what people are saying, I decide which direction to take the story. I try to set a trend, not to just follow one. I try to write my story in a way that, if I were reading that story, how would I want it to be broken down? Especially if it's a complicated topic. How would I want to read it in a way that I understand?”
Cultural differences between Kenya and the United States: “The biggest one for me, especially as a journalist, was the conversion from British English to American English. I went to school in Kenya, which was a British colony, so when I was a college student in the US, I used to write stories and then my editor would mark up the entire story because everything was spelled the British way. We also have different terms for things. In Kenya, we say the ‘boot’ of a car, instead of the ‘trunk,’ which is the British way. Like French fries — in Kenya, we call them ‘chips.’ Also, American journalism is very informal and you are encouraged to write in a way that anybody can understand. In Kenya, journalism was more formal, so I used to have a lot of my stories rewritten because of that.”
Her favorite topics to write about: “I love writing about people doing extraordinary things, because I love to get inspired. Anyone who is barely covered in mainstream media, such as minorities and immigrants.
For example, we did a story on a former gang leader in California who befriended a woman in Seattle. They'd been exchanging letters while he’s in prison for life, and they became best friends.
