Keli Goff: Media Maven Talks Career Autonomy, Financial Security, and Social Change

Keli Goff, a multiplatform journalist, author, and staff writer last season for BET’s hit series Being Mary Jane, is a writer with an interest in social change.

A graduate of Columbia University’s M.A in strategic communications program, this communications maven is quite comfortable navigating the varied realm of media, entertainment, and the arts–all with the power of the written word. Goff has fueled nationwide conversations about politics, race, and gender through appearances on renowned mass media outlets, such as CBS, MSNBC, NPR, FOX, BET, and NBC’s Meet the Press, among others. She is the author of two critically-acclaimed books, Party Crashing: How the Hip Hop Generation Declared Political Independence, and a political novel titled The GQ Candidate.

Additionally, she is a 2014-2016 fellow in New York Public Theater’s Emerging Playwriting Group, as well as a columnist for The Daily Beast. 

BlackEnterprise.com caught up with Keli Goff to discuss her multiplatform story-telling, balancing career autonomy with economic realities, and the relationship between her writing and social change interests.

BlackEnterprise.com: You’ve participated in virtually every sector of the media world. How do you identify, in terms of career?

Goff: I’m a writer. It’s what I spend most of my time doing and what I’m most fulfilled doing. I’ve appeared on television alot as a political analyst and a commentator. Some people would say that when you’re a multi-platform writer or journalist you’re a storyteller; especially when you do it in different genres. But I think of myself as a writer. What inspires me the most is asking myself what it is that I’m trying to say or that I feel the need to say, and which platform will provide the best vehicle to tell that story. One of the reasons I transitioned into playwriting is that the media landscape was changing so much that it gets much harder to tell complex stories through traditional media.

What do you consider traditional media?

Traditional cable shows, writing for newspapers and print magazines, writing for online outlets–all of which I’ve done. Things are getting faster. Stories have to be told in a shorter, more succinct fashion because so much is being driven by the Internet. There’s alot less time and room for nuance and, to me, that’s where the most interesting stories lay. I like to have the room to breakdown what fuels someone’s perspective, not just what their perspective is. You can’t really do that in 800 words or in a 5min segment.

What are your thoughts on media and social change?

There are all sorts of ways to contribute to society and the arts is one of them; writing can be one of them. This is getting harder and harder to do through journalism because of the way the industry is changing, so I was really interested in other mediums. People aren’t really getting to know people’s stories;

what got them to where they are, what got them to the point where they happen to disagree on an issue. It’s really hard to hate someone when you know them as a person and a lot of what’s happening in media right now is you ‘know’ someone through their tweets, through the five minutes you saw them in a segment on a cable news show. If you have any interest in changing someone’s heart and mind, yelling at them [or telling them] they’re a bad person based on a tweet or a segment, is not a productive way to get there. If you don’t understand where someone else is coming from who disagrees with you, its makes it hard for you to reach them and, also, for you to grow as a person.

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You talked about having an interest in exploring the ‘people behind politics.’ How did you find yourself in a position to move from platform to platform as a writer?

I’ve really had a backwards career. I had an idea for a book and met someone at a party who introduced me to an agent. I landed a meeting with that agent and told them I had this idea for a book about generational differences between black Americans. It turned out that the agent I was introduced to, who became my first book agent, represented Martin

Luther King’s estate. She had this profound interest in, not just civil rights, but the post-civil rights generation.  She signed me as a client and I started working on this book, where I interviewed everyone from Colin Powell and Russell Simmons to young black voters, and that became my first book— Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence.

Did you have a career strategy? 

My only strategy was that I wanted to have the freedom to do what I wanted to do.

So you wanted autonomy?

I wanted autonomy to tell the stories I was interested in telling, do the writing I wanted to do, and reach the audiences it was important for me to reach.

Career autonomy is certainly valuable, but autonomy often accompanies the loss of financial security that an institution or organization can provide. What are your thoughts on this? 

That’s a great question and an important one. The model that our parents relied on, which is ‘go work at one place and you know you’re good for at least thirty years,’ just doesn’t exist anymore; particularly in media. You kind of have to look out for yourself, carve your own pathway, and create your own journey. You do different kinds of writing because that’s the safest way to make sure that if one gig falls through, you’re OK for the next month. Every person I know is in some capacity a freelancer–whether its my friend Marc Lamont Hill, or others–they’re doing different types of writing because that’s the smartest, most efficient and financially doable way to be a writer today.

My day job is actually a part of what I love too.  I just wrote a column for The Daily Beast about Donald Trump’s comments about black America. Writing that was important for me. I’m in the middle of finishing a play, that I really need to finish. Yet it didn’t feel like I was taking away from the play to work on the column because saying what I wanted to say about that was important to me. I feel very blessed that my day job is a job that I also happen to enjoy, but that doesn’t mean they’re aren’t days where its hard–interviews aren’t coming together, the person cancels, etc.  All and all, I can say, in the past few years, I haven’t had to have a job that I hate–that’s emotionally draining–and that’s a real gift. When I first got this fellowship, one of our first speakers said, “Don’t have another job that drains your creativity from the job you actually love.” That’s really the key.

To learn more about Keli Goff visit www.keligoff.com, and be sure to catch the next season of Being Mary Jane on BET.

This article was written by Rebecca Nichloson