Will Riddell (’23) has had a passion for storytelling for most of his life, and that led him down the path of becoming a journalist.
As a kid, Will fell in love with people. Because of that, he gravitated toward journalism, since almost every day he meets and talks to someone new. He said it is fun to learn about what people are passionate about in what they do.
Junior Margaret Riddell is Will’s sister. She said her brother’s great relational skills make him a great fit to become a journalist.
“He's very relational,” Margaret said. “He's just a very good communicator. He enjoys talking to people. He gets along well with people.”
Will had a unique path to Taylor University.
Will initially went to Arizona State University in 2018 to study sports journalism. He did not feel like the school was a good fit for him, so he ended up transferring closer to home to the University of Indianapolis after three semesters at ASU.
However, coronavirus hit as he was at the University of Indianapolis, and Will was forced to make another change. He had a good friend named Jack Kersey, who graduated from Taylor and recommended him to Taylor. Will enrolled during the fall of 2021 and fell in love with the school.
While at Taylor, Will became heavily involved with The Echo, where he wrote news and feature stories. He was also the news section editor for a year. It was a great opportunity for Will to pursue his passion for storytelling, and he became heavily involved with student media.
Alan Blanchard, associate professor of journalism and executive director of the Pulliam Journalism Center, spoke highly of Riddell and the impact he brought during his time at Taylor.
“Will Riddell brought a positive, can-do attitude to the stories he wrote for The Echo during his time as a multimedia journalism major,” Blanchard said. “He had a lot of energy, focus, and talent that he poured into each story that he wrote for the campus community and beyond.”
Beyond The Echo, Will had lots of experience writing for many different organizations. He had different internships with Current Publishing, based in Carmel, Indiana, and in San Diego, California, writing for the San Diego Magazine.
Will ended up taking a job in Tyler, Texas, working as a multimedia journalist at a local TV station in December of 2024. He was busy during his time there, as he was shooting, writing and editing news packages for the nightly newscasts almost every night.
“There were lots of days where we would be at the office for 10 hours, and it would be a lot,” Will said. “It was a grind working in TV news, but it was rewarding, for sure.”
A couple of Will’s favorite stories come from his time at KYTX CBS 19. One of them was about a local kid who had gone missing and how the community was able to rally one another through that difficult time by doing a butterfly release.
Another one was about a youth football camp hosted by Dallas Cowboys football player Jake Ferguson. It was cool for Will to see Ferguson share the love of football with local kids, especially with how big football is in Texas.
Will’s time at Tyler was short-lived, however, as he left the station in December of 2025. The biggest reason that Will left TV news was that it was consistently depressing.
“Every night, every day, you're dealing with a car crash, a homicide, a house fire, and as talking about some of those stories that are memorable for me, like a missing person, that's a heavy story, and doing those stories consistently takes a toll on you,” Will said.
Will seeks to transition into writing more lifestyle stories, something less depressing than TV news. He finds joy in building relationships with the people he interacts with and shining a light on what they may be passionate about.
