Sometimes the best media personalities aren’t the people who simply know how to talk into a camera. They’re the people who genuinely enjoy talking to people.

That has been a big part of Mikey Hood’s journey.

Long before Pittsburgh viewers knew Hood from KDKA-TV, she was already creating a lane for herself and using it to introduce Pittsburgh to people whose stories she believed deserved attention.

Today, Hood can be seen on KDKA’s Pittsburgh Today Live and Talk Pittsburgh, but her path to television didn’t begin when a major station handed her a microphone.

She had already picked one up herself.

 

Pittsburgh From the Beginning

Hood is a Pittsburgh native who grew up in the city’s East End and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School.

Her interest in television goes all the way back to childhood. According to her KDKA biography, Hood would interview her friends and even produce pretend commercials with them. She eventually attended the University of Pittsburgh, studying Writing and Communications.

Those childhood interviews turned out to be more than kids playing around. They were an early preview of where her life was headed.

 

Creating Her Own Opportunity

One of the most interesting parts of Hood’s story came before KDKA.

She created PghSpot, an online platform designed to highlight Pittsburgh’s movers, shakers, entrepreneurs and personalities.

That part of her journey stands out to me. There was no guarantee that creating your own digital platform would eventually lead to television. You had to believe enough in what you were doing to start anyway.

Hood did.

Her work with PghSpot allowed her to interview people, produce content and build a recognizable presence around Pittsburgh.

When KDKA hired Hood in March 2019, the New Pittsburgh Courier reported that her experience creating digital profiles through PghSpot was part of the background she brought into her new role.

There’s a lesson in that for today’s content creators.

Sometimes you don’t wait for somebody in traditional media to give you an opportunity. You create the opportunity first.

 

From Digital Platform to KDKA

Hood joined KDKA in March 2019 and eventually became one of the familiar personalities viewers see on the station’s lifestyle programming.

She currently appears on Pittsburgh Today Live and Talk Pittsburgh.

But despite moving onto one of Pittsburgh’s most recognizable television stations, the foundation of what Hood does hasn’t changed much.

It’s still about people. It’s still about conversation. And it’s still about Pittsburgh.

When she was hired by KDKA, Hood told the New Pittsburgh Courier that part of the enjoyment was getting to learn about people the public otherwise might never know and putting a spotlight on people doing positive things for the city.

That’s important because local media can sometimes become dominated by everything going wrong.

Crime. Politics. Controversy. Bad news. There is obviously a responsibility to report those stories, but communities also need people willing to show what’s going right.

Entrepreneurs building businesses. People helping neighborhoods. Artists creating something. Community leaders making a difference. Regular Pittsburghers with extraordinary stories.

That’s a lane Hood understood before she ever arrived at KDKA.

 

Building Something Before Somebody Notices

That’s also why I wanted to feature Mikey Hood on DrewSchifino.com.

As someone building an independent media platform myself, I respect people who were willing to create something before a larger platform came calling.

The media business has changed dramatically.

You don’t necessarily need somebody’s permission anymore to interview interesting people, tell important stories or build an audience.

You can start. Then you have to make people pay attention. Mikey Hood did exactly that.

From an East End kid pretending to conduct interviews, to creating PghSpot, to eventually sitting in front of KDKA cameras, Hood’s journey shows that sometimes the opportunity you’re waiting for begins with the one you’re willing to create yourself.

Now I wanted to hear the story directly from her.

 

Q: You grew up in Pittsburgh’s East End and went to Allderdice. What was young Mikey Hood like, and how much did growing up in Pittsburgh shape the woman viewers see on television today?

A: I grew up in Pittsburgh’s East End with my younger brother and my mom and dad. It was one of those neighborhoods where there were kids everywhere. We played outside all day until the streetlights came on. We had a lot of freedom, although there were also a couple of years when gang violence in the city changed some of that. I was always the kid who could move between different groups of people. I had friends in all kinds of circles, and I think that ability to connect with different people has stayed with me. Education was also really important in our house. I lost my dad my senior year of high school, which was incredibly difficult, but that experience probably gave me some of the resilience I still carry today.

 

Q: You’ve said that even as a kid you were interviewing your friends and making pretend commercials. Did you know back then that television was something you seriously wanted to pursue, or did that realization come later?

A: All of my friends knew I would do anything to be in front of a camera. I don’t even know where it came from because, as social as I was, I could also be really introverted. I once made my friends practice a dance routine for weeks so we could send it to Star Search. We never heard back! We also made our own sunglasses commercial. I have no idea where that tape ended up. So yes, I think I knew very early that I wanted to be in television or media in some capacity. I just didn’t know what that career would eventually look like.

 

Q: Before KDKA, you created PghSpot to highlight Pittsburgh’s movers and shakers. What made you decide to stop waiting for an opportunity and create your own platform?

A: At the heart of it, I’ve always wanted to tell stories and help people. At some point, I realized I didn’t need to wait for someone to give me permission or hand me an opportunity to do that. I could create the opportunity myself. That’s really what PghSpot became: a place where I could sit down with interesting people in Pittsburgh, tell their stories and give people a platform. That mission was important to me then, and honestly, it still is.

 

Q: A lot of people are building podcasts, websites and social-media platforms today hoping they’ll eventually lead somewhere bigger. What did PghSpot teach you about building something from the ground up when nobody can guarantee where it’s going?

A: It taught me that building something from the ground up is hard, especially when there’s no guarantee that anyone is going to watch or that it’s going to lead anywhere. But it also taught me that the things that are worthwhile usually aren’t easy. One of the biggest lessons for me was to do it afraid. You don’t have to have everything figured out before you start. Sometimes you just have to start, stay consistent and allow the path to reveal itself along the way.

 

Q: Do you remember the moment you found out KDKA wanted you? After creating your own platform and grinding independently, what did that moment feel like?

A: It felt amazing, but there was also this feeling of, “I knew I could do this.” I had spent years creating opportunities for myself, interviewing people and learning how to connect with an audience, and suddenly I was getting the opportunity to do that at KDKA, the station I grew up watching in my hometown. And I knew I could represent people and communities in a way that felt authentic to who I am. That meant a lot to me.

 

Q: Was there ever a point before KDKA when you questioned whether television was actually going to happen for you? If so, what kept you going?

A: I’m sure there were moments when I was discouraged, but I honestly don’t remember ever accepting that it wasn’t going to happen. I’m very determined, and once I decide I want something, I usually start figuring out another way to get there. Maybe the path wasn’t always going to look the way I imagined, but I always believed television or storytelling would be part of my life in some capacity.

 

Q: People see the finished product on television, but they don’t see everything happening behind the scenes. What’s something about working in television that viewers would be surprised to learn?

A: First of all, you don’t make the fortune people sometimes think you do! And I think people would be surprised to know that being on camera is probably 10 percent of the job. The rest is researching, writing, planning, pitching ideas, preparing for interviews and constantly thinking about what’s next. The part viewers see is really the final product of everything that happened before the cameras came on.

 

Q: You interview people for a living. What separates an average interview from a conversation that people actually remember?

A: I think the best interviews stop feeling like interviews and start feeling like conversations. You have to listen instead of simply waiting to ask your next question. I’m also always thinking about the person sitting at home: What would they want to ask? Why should they care about this? How does this person’s story connect to their life? When people can see some part of themselves in a conversation, that’s usually when it sticks with them.

 

Q: Pittsburgh can sometimes be a difficult city to break through in, particularly in media and entertainment. Did you ever feel like you had to prove yourself more than other people to get your opportunity?

A: Yes, to some extent, especially because I didn’t come from a traditional journalism background. There were things other people had been trained to do that I had to learn along the way, so I felt like I needed to work even harder to catch up. In some ways, though, not having the traditional path became an advantage. I came in knowing how to connect with people, have conversations and tell stories in my own way. Then I worked really hard to learn the rest, and I’m still learning every day.

 

Q: Your career has allowed you to meet people from all different parts of Pittsburgh. What’s something you’ve learned about this city through interviewing its people that you didn’t fully understand growing up here?

A: I’ve learned that people are much more alike than we sometimes think. It doesn’t really matter what neighborhood you’re from, what side of town you grew up on or what your background is. Most people want the same basic things: they want to matter, they want their experiences to matter, and they want to feel seen. And everybody is going through something. That’s probably made me more empathetic, not only as an interviewer but as a person.

 

Q: Local television is competing with podcasts, YouTube, TikTok and independent digital platforms for people’s attention. Where do you think local television fits into the future of media?

A: Media has changed dramatically, and I think it’s going to keep changing very quickly. People don’t necessarily distinguish between “television” and “digital” the way they once did. They just want good content wherever they happen to be watching it. I think local television still has something incredibly valuable: trust and connection to the community. But we can’t assume people are always going to come to us the way they used to. We have to meet them where they are—on television, social media, streaming and whatever comes next—while still staying true to what makes local media valuable in the first place.

 

Q: Because you successfully went from creating your own digital platform to working at KDKA, what advice would you give an independent creator trying to build something today?

A: Come up with an idea—maybe it’s a story you want to tell, a problem you want to solve or something you believe is missing—and just start. Do it afraid. Do it when you think people might judge you. Do it when you’re posting something and wondering if anybody is even paying attention. And then stick with it. Because eventually somebody may notice. But even before that happens, if something you’ve created helps one person, changes someone’s perspective or makes somebody feel seen, then what you’re doing already matters.

 

Q: You’ve accomplished the goal of making it onto television in your hometown, but what’s the next dream for Mikey Hood? Is there something professionally you still want to accomplish that people might not know about?

A: I’m still figuring out exactly what it looks like, and I’m actually becoming more comfortable saying that. I’ve accomplished something I dreamed about for a very long time. I get to host a meaningful television show in my hometown, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. But I also know there’s more in me. I would love to continue growing as a host, take on bigger opportunities and reach people on an even larger scale, whether that’s television, another platform or something that doesn’t exist for me yet. I just have this feeling that there’s another chapter to my career that hasn’t been written yet. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know I’m not finished.

 

Q: When everything is eventually said and done, how do you want Pittsburgh to remember Mikey Hood?

A: More than anything, I hope people remember me as someone who genuinely cared about people. Someone who worked hard, stayed curious and used whatever platform she had to make other people feel seen. If somebody can say, “She made me feel like my story mattered,” I’d be pretty happy with that legacy.