Mary Staes

Mary Staes is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She has been published on WWLTV.com, NOLA.com, and the Marine Corps Times. 

 

She joined the Very Local New Orleans team in October 2018 and is the digital curator for the site. She provides daily content for Very Local, as well as its social media pages, and guides freelancers and content contributors to the fresh voice the site projects in the city.

 

Mary previously was a part of the WWL-TV news team in 2015 and served as a digital content producer and weekend assignment editor for the station. She was in charge of ensuring the website was up to date and posting accurate and meaningful content to the site, including updating the station social media accounts. She also worked on multimedia stories, social videos and produced original content for the site.

 

In her role as an assignment editor, she managed a team of about a dozen reporters, producers, and photographers. She ensured viewers got the same experience that they would watching the news on a weekday, without realizing it's coming from a much smaller news team.

 

Only a year after joining the WWL-TV digital team, she was awarded the Willie P. Wilson Excellence in Storytelling Award. She is the youngest member of WWL-TV to have earned the distinction. She was also the youngest acting manager at the station during her time there.

 

During college, Mary was executive producer Maroon Minute, Loyola University's morning minute newscast, in August 2014. She also served as director of special segments, including the weekly sports roundup, and was a contributor to the Loyola Lagniappe show. During her senior year, she received the Bonomo Award for Outstanding Student in the School of Mass Communication and the A. Louis Reed Award for Outstanding Electronic Media Student. She graduated from Loyola University in December 2015. 
 
Shortly after graduating McMain Secondary School in 2005, Mary joined the United States Marine Corps. She specialized in public affairs. During her first two years, she traveled to Europe and covered the largest medical training that the United States participates in. She was promoted to broadcast chief in 2007. During that time, she made sure that 160 Marine Reserve training facilities had proper broadcast news coverage. She also hosted a weekly web podcast of news stories about reserve Marines across the country.