Hugh T. Brooks

“Ugh, journalists are so boring!” pouts a 6-year-old Kate Nocera at the dinner table. Her father and then-business journalist Joe Nocera looks over at her in awe before she storms off to her room, leaving the dining room full of friends and reporters chuckling. Thirty years later, Nocera, 36, is the D.C. Bureau Chief of Buzzfeed News, and her life has been anything but boring. 

Nocera started her journalism career in New York City after receiving a bachelor’s degree in sociology at University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2007. She reported on crime in Queens for the New York Daily News as she studied for her master’s in journalism at The City University of New York. Though crime was an intense beat, this experience taught her empathy and how to get information. 

“There has to be a level of stupidity…combined with empathy, fearlessness, and ability to be open to whatever the answer is,” Nocera said. 

After the financial crisis, the rough economy sent Nocera on her way to Washington, D.C., where she found a job at Politico in 2010. She worked first as a healthcare reporter and then eventually as a congressional reporter. For Nocera, any reporter can adapt to any number of roles and beats.

“If you’re a good reporter and you know how to ask questions and do research, you can cover literally anything,” she said.

Her excellent reporting landed her a job at Buzzfeed News in 2013 as a senior congressional reporter, and she loved the work environment immediately. 

“I think we have better snacks. I think we have more freedom to publish things that people might feel scared to publish,” Nocera said. Her stories at Buzzfeed News won her the National Press Foundation’s Dirksen award for distinguished reporting of Congress in 2014. 

However, reporting on Capitol Hill can be time-consuming and exhausting. At the pinnacle of the 2016 presidential election, Nocera stepped away from Buzzfeed News. 

“I was very tired at that point, and I thought it was time to try something new and different,” she said. 

Nocera had also become involved with her now husband, Mike, and knew the upcoming election could put an end to her free-time and relationship. 

“You do get hooked into news cycle in a way that’s not always healthy,” she said.

After a quick stint with the personal relations company SKDKnickerbocker and some time with Vox Media, Nocera knew she wanted to return to journalism. 

“It was completely antithetical to what I had done my whole life,” she said. Luckily enough, her old boss at Buzzfeed News, Ben Smith, who she called “her mentor for the last six years,” hired her back. 

Though she was glad she made this choice, it was not easy for Nocera to any extent. 

“My biggest professional challenge was realizing I made a mistake when I left journalism and having to figure out how to come back–or convince people that I wanted to come back,” she said.

Nocera now manages the newsroom at the Washington, D.C., branch of Buzzfeed News, administrating the complexities of reporters and daily office life. Though she spends a lot of time buying snacks, the gummy fruit snacks in particular are her favorite, Nocera has never lost her drive for journalism and always helps her writers find the best stories. 

“I have a lot of love and respect for the people that work for me,” she said. “If I’m asking you to work 13-14 hours on Capitol Hill, I’m gonna be working 13-14 hours with you.”

She also became a Georgetown University Politics fellow for the Spring of 2020. Being an editor and administrator, she loved the idea of helping students learn as she helps her reporters. Nocera also felt the need for more active, immersive work.

“I was worried I wasn’t doing the fun part anymore,” she said, “I wasn’t making time to listen or hear other perspectives.”

Nocera has found outlets for her journalism passion in many different facets of her life. However, reporting and administrating can be an overwhelming job, and Nocera recognizes the need for a restructuring of her work-life balance. 

“I haven’t taken a moment to breath since September 2016,” she said. “Someday I would like my husband and I to move to a quieter place. I would like to go back to Massachusetts. I don’t know quite what I would do there, and that’s part of the problem.” 

Despite many obstacles, Nocera has championed her life thus far and is excited for many more years of making sure that at least one journalist is certainly not boring.