Carol Daniel is back behind the microphone, and the metro-east woman has a new assignment

Carol Daniel began the newest chapter of her award-winning career with a goal of digging deep and telling stories people need to hear.

One way the beloved veteran broadcast journalist and metro-east resident plans to do that is through a new podcast that focuses on underrepresented voices, part of her responsibilities as a senior producer and host at Nine PBS, her new employer.

“My goal is to dive into how we got here, who we were, who we are, who we hope to be and all the issues that face the Black and brown community and who is doing what to address those issues,” Daniel said in a BND interview.

The first three episodes of the podcast, Listen, St. Louis with Carol Daniel, premiered Thursday, Nov. 9, on the Nine PBS YouTube channel.

Daniel joined Nine PBS in September, just months after retiring as a longtime anchor, host and reporter at KMOX radio. She brings more than 40 years of experience to her new job, where she will explore topics and people that are having an impact in the St. Louis region. Besides doing her podcast, Daniel will produce content for the Nine PBS flagship program, Living St. Louis.

While her initial podcasts have been posted, Daniel’s work for Living St. Louis likely will first appear in the new year.

Leaders of Nine PBS are excited to have the talented Daniel on the team.

“With a long and lauded career, Carol Daniel is a true St. Louis media icon, trusted to bring this community stories that matter,” said Amy Shaw, president and CEO of Nine PBS. “ Her reputation for informing and inspiring through her work is well known, and she is committed to Nine PBS’s role in helping the community thrive. She has big plans for her new chapter at Nine PBS, and we could not be more excited that she’s joining our team.”

Aja Williams, vice president and chief content officer, said Daniel has ``come in the door and hit the ground running.”

“Carol shares our values and is dedicated to helping our region grow and thrive,” Williams said. “ She’s an important addition to our organization and the right voice to help us explore and understand the complexities of issues we face in St. Louis.”

Daniel is equally excited, saying one of the things she loves about working at Nine PBS is working for two female top leaders, Shaw and Williams.

“I am excited about their desire to change the narrative about this region and to change the way we see ourselves,” Daniel said. “The only way to do that is to understand how we got here. I am so excited that they have the same vision that I do.”

When she speaks about ‘how we got here,’ Daniel said she’s interested in “connecting some dots, if I can,” for her listeners and viewers.

“Heaven knows there are some dots that perhaps the public doesn’t even recognize anymore because it seems like it was so long ago, but redlining wasn’t that long ago and it is still happening.” she said. “ I want to talk about the history of this region because it directly connects to who we are.”

How she got here

Daniel and her family live in southwestern Illinois. She is married to Patrick Daniel, and they have two children, Patrick Daniel Jr. and Marcus Isiah Daniel.

Daniel retired from KMOX in late May, after 28 years as a news anchor, talk show host, interviewer and reporter. She’s a beloved and trusted figure in the St. Louis region among listeners, community members and her peers. She’s a member of the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame and recognized as a Living Legend by the National Association of Black Journalists–St. Louis. She has served as a role model for many.

Now she is using her talents and passion for the region in her new job.

Her broadcasting and reporting experience, coupled with her love for people and the community, will enable Daniel to give her audience the stories they want and need to hear about, and reveal and uncover information they may not have known, she said.

The first three episodes of her podcast may do just that. Nine PBS has announced that the featured guests and topics in these episodes, in order, are:

• Episode 1, featuring Marvin Steele, president and CEO of Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce. Steele and Daniel talk about why Black business ownership in the St. Louis region should matter to everyone.
• Episode 2, featuring Amy Hunter, vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Caleres, a footwear company based in Clayton, Missouri. She and Daniel discuss “what is holding back investment in Black children and how we move a divided region forward.”
• Episode 3, featuring Neal Richardson, president and CEO of the St. Louis Development Corporation, the economic development agency for the city of St. Louis. Richardson and Daniel discuss “creating equitable growth and prosperity for disinvested parts of St. Louis.”

Daniel is taking on complex stories

“To be at Nine PBS is really a dream. I want to uncover stories, answer difficult questions, introduce the people who are doing the hard work of helping the community grow,” Daniel told the BND.

Daniel said that it’s sad to hear stories of generational poverty. Why, in one of the world’s richest nations has generational poverty persisted, she asks.

“The difficult questions for the powers to be is ‘What has failed?’ What’s working or has not worked,” Daniel said.

She said she has long understood there are many “different people, organizations, campaigns, efforts that have always been underway “ to educate, to feed , to house, and to heal.

“And sometimes traditional media doesn’t cover solutions,” she said. “It covers problems because some of these problems are breaking news. In a 20-minute newscast with traffic, sports and weather, you get four and a half minutes to focus on breaking news and maybe 30 seconds on a solution.

“I think a lot of people in traditional media, as well, understand why viewership, and readership are down,“ Daniel said.

Daniel wants her work to meet the needs of a population that she believes is yearning for a deeper understanding of issues “that comes with asking the questions what happened, what is wrong, how do we fix it.?”

Knowing the history of difficult issues is important, because `when you know better, you do better,” she said, quoting the late poet and St. Louis native Maya Angelou, and you make better decisions going forward.

“We have to know our history so we don’t repeat our history . From knowing and understanding the history to understanding where we are, why we’re here and how we navigate out of this is important,“ she said.

Daniel said she and the leadership team at Nine PBS wants to change the narrative of the St. Louis region.

“That means focusing on all parts of the region. What’s going right? What’s going wrong?,” she said. “ If you say you love St. Louis, you can’t just love the Central West End and then you don’t like the rest of it. You can’t say you love Eureka and not the rest of it . That’s like saying I love my foot but I can’t stand my arm. That’s kind of where we are right now. How do we come together?”

As an example, she cited a recent jobs report from Greater St. Louis Inc. that said if Black people were creating jobs at the same rate as white people, there would be 7,000 additional black-owned businesses in the St. Louis region.

“ That ought to tell everybody we are not tapping into our potential and we are not as strong and vibrant as we could be or should be because we are not tapping into our potential,” Daniel said. “ We just have to tap into our potential. We are strong enough and smart enough to do that. We just have to have the will to do that. That’s what I hope my stories reveal.”

Daniel said she wants her stories to inspire people to know the region “is worth saving and worth investing in.

“We will all be better, happier, more joyful and safer for it if we do what must be done right now,” she said. “There is no time like the present. I feel like I am in the right place at the right time. I just want to do and say what must be said and do what must be done.”

You can find Daniel’s podcast at the Nine PBS YouTube channel, and later, on anywhere you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published November 10, 2023 at 6:30 AM.