About Stephon / ← 03 · New York / 04 · The Journalist / Denial at Every Turn →
The Journalist
The camera gave my curiosity somewhere to go.
Years after watching WJZ from my grandmother’s bedroom, I interned in that newsroom and eventually came home to work beside the people I had grown up watching. Among them were Mark Viviano, Marty Bass, Denise Koch and Ron Matz, to name a few. The road between those moments carried me across cities, disasters, elections, celebrations and lives in transition.
Again and again, I found myself with a front-row seat to history—not merely watching it unfold, but documenting it while people were still trying to understand what it meant. Across my career, I earned multiple Emmy nominations, including for Best Anchor. During my time at WJZ, I was the only Baltimore-market nominee in the category in 2024; the other nominees came from Washington, D.C., and Virginia.
The road between those moments
A career mapped in cities.
Behind the reporting
The work in motion.
On the desk, in the field and beside the next generation—the work has always been about helping people understand what is happening and why it matters.
History, as it happened.
When history broke
I covered Donald Trump’s 2016 election and inauguration; a Christmas Day tornado; the aftermath of Hurricane Irma; and the killing of Breonna Taylor and the reckoning that followed. Each demanded speed without surrendering context—and the discipline to remember the human beings inside the headline.
When home made history
Back in Baltimore, I documented the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the state’s changing face of power: Wes Moore becoming Maryland’s first Black governor and Angela Alsobrooks becoming its first Black U.S. senator. I entered those rooms as a native son, receiving access and trying to extend it back to the city that raised me.
When a life became the story
I covered the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, Ravens training camps, games and tailgates—and countless stories that may have looked ordinary from the outside. A family’s loss. A child’s achievement. A neighborhood’s joy. For better or worse, it was often one of the defining moments of someone’s life, and they trusted me to capture it.
Emmy recognition
Anchoring · Reporting · Storytelling
12
Emmy nominations
2
Emmy wins
Winning work
Best Daytime Newscast · Best Reporter
for reporting from Louisville after Breonna Taylor’s killing, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the national racial-justice uprising following George Floyd’s murder
Best Anchor · Multiple career nominations; at WJZ, the only Baltimore-market nominee in 2024
The scale changed. The obligation never did. What began as a childhood way of protecting myself became the instinct I carried into every room: listen for what people say and what they avoid, understand what is at stake, and leave behind a record that proves their moment mattered.
The thread
New York widened the horizon.
Baltimore brought the work home.
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