Rock Island native’s dreams come true at MTV, DNC
Kristin Grimmett has wanted to be in broadcast television since she saw “Paula Sands Live” in the fifth grade.
And the Quad-City native said the 1999 Rock Island High School yearbook has a picture of her in New York’s Times Square, in front of MTV Studios, with a caption reading that she was at the site of her dream job as an MTV VJ.
While her hopes of hosting a video music show for the cable network are long gone, she is working a step up the ladder, covering politics at the Democratic National Convention this week as an associate producer for MTV News.
“I work with these people who are absolutely amazing and talented, and just to be around them is surreal,” Grimmett said. “And the fact that I’m respected and it doesn’t matter where you come from or what your background is. As long as you put in the work, you can do anything.”
The daughter of Shirley and the late Frederick Grimmett is the fourth of eight children and was the first member of her family to attend college. She paid her own way through Kean University in Union, N.J., which she chose because it’s just a train ride from New York City and the MTV studios.
“We grew up not rich whatsoever,” she said. “So I think there was that whole thing to get
out and make something of yourself so that your younger brothers can have something to look up to.”
Grimmett snagged an internship at MTV News with the help of a friend who was already working for the cable network and then stayed on for a second internship, working 30 hours a week while taking 21 credit hours at college. Her work impressed the then-vice president of news at the network, and Grimmett was hired right out of college to work on the MTV reality series “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” which profiles wealthy teenagers as they plan extravagant birthday parties.
“It’s so funny. On Facebook, everybody has Facebook, everybody leaves comments like, ‘Kristin, I can’t believe you’re doing what you said you were going to do. It’s so awesome,’ ” said Grimmett, who has even heard from former classmates who thought she never would accomplish her goals because of her skin color. Some people, she recalled, would say, “ ‘They’re never going to have a mixed(-race) person or a mutt work at MTV.’ They were kind of cruel, and even those people are now making comments to me about how cool it is.”
While Grimmett is staying politically neutral as she and her MTV team interview artists such as Redman, N.E.R.D, Fall Out Boy and Nick Cannon for their thoughts on U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the presidential candidate from her home state of Illinois, she said that covering the convention is nonetheless an emotional experience.
“History is being made right now and to be part of it, it’s emotional. I could cry talking about it right now,” she said. “The energy out here is crazy, and the support for him is overwhelming, and it’s just nice to see that everybody can come together and not necessarily see color.”
Before heading back to where she got her start at MTV News, Grimmett also worked on the MTV shows “Two-A-Days,” “Dances From the Hood,” “Live Earth” concerts and the Video Music Awards. She currently is heading MTV’s Chose or Lose project.
Chose or Lose employs 51 citizen journalists in each state and the District of Columbia, most of whom are in college and live in towns that aren’t at the top of politicians’ lists of places in which to campaign. The citizen journalists blog about political issues affecting their lives, from roads being built to environmental matters.
“I think that MTV set a precedent since they started Chose or Lose. Sixteen percent of the delegates out here at the DNC are youth. I think MTV had an extreme amount to do with that,” Grimmett said. “We’ve seen 14- 15- 16-year-olds out here. I know in the future they’ll be the ones voting.”
Grimmett also will cover the Republican National Convention next week in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Footage and news from both conventions is and will be broadcast throughout the day during MTV News updates and online at mtv.com/news. MTV also will air two programs on both conventions at a yet-to-be- determined time and date.
Stephanie De Pasquale can be
contacted at (563) 333-2639 or
sdepasquale@qctimes.com.