Leslie Rangel
Human First, Journalist Second
Thought Leader
Journalist
Speaker
Author
Coach
Host
Journalist
Leslie Rangel is an Emmy-nominated and United Nations recognized journalist. She’s spent 12+ years working in newsrooms as a reporter, producer, photographer, mentor, evening and morning news anchor.
Leslie covers mental health and social injustice. Her reporting work led her to being named the 2016 Best Reporter in the state of Texas by the Associated Press Broadcasters. Her coverage as a crime reporter in Austin led to a station Emmy award in 2017. In 2018, she was selected to take part in Poynter's Covering Jails program where she uncovered staff oversight led to an inmates' death at the McLennan County Jail in Waco, Texas.
Leslie is a 2022 recipient of the SPJ Dori Maynard Diversity Leadership Program and 2023 recipient of the IRE Journalist of Color fellowship. She's currently Senior Editor for Investigations at an online Texas-based news publication.
Thought Leader
Leslie leads the way in reimagining work culture in the journalism industry. She is the CEO and founder of The News Yogi Mental Wellness Coaching and Consulting, providing mental wellness and leadership coaching to journalists, newsrooms and high-achieving humans. Leslie is certified in yoga psychology, breathwork facilitation, meditation and mental wellness/mindset/ life coaching through YES Supply, approved by the International Coaching Federation. She’s on a mission to help journalists do their jobs in a healthy way, normalize mental wellness conversations in the workplace and help leaders step into their purpose and big life goals.
Speaker
Leslie is a leader both in the community and the journalism world. She's spoken and moderated several panels in her community about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, Latina Equal Pay, Latinx leadership, the importance of mental health conversations in communities of color and the importance of generational wealth in communities of color.
In the journalism world, Leslie has lead mental wellness workshops for audiences of 100+, spoken on topics of mental health advocacy for journalists and making sure that newsrooms across the U.S. are diverse.
Author
Journalists have been taught to never show emotion or weakness, pay your dues and never take a day off. These teachings led Emmy nominated journalists, Leslie Rangel, to highly successful journalism careers. But when the TV cameras turned off, she suffered in silence with the emotional toll the career had taken on them. Like many journalists, it didn’t feel safe to speak up.
This book aims to change that by normalizing the conversation about mental wellness for those working in the journalism field. Leslie, along with her co-author, lead the conversation to help journalists become better equipped to handle the mental toll. This book will teach journalists to recognize stress, trauma, burnout and moral injury; use coping skills to manage stress in news; learn tools to address the impact of mental wellness on all journalists including those from marginalized communities, as well as serve as a call to action for journalists and news organizations to improve mental wellness in the workplace.
This book is the first of its kind to give step-by-step tools to ensure journalists break news, without letting it break them. It’s a book every journalist should have as a reminder that you are not alone in how you feel and deserve to feel like a human first.