Action News Jax Anchor Tenikka Hughes is the 2024 READ USA Mark Landen Memorial Award for Democracy through Journalism Honoree. The Mark Landen Memorial Award recognizes a local media personality for moving the needle on equity and democracy through journalistic work.
For nearly a decade, Tenikka has co-anchored Action News Jax’s evening newscasts, reporting on current events and providing information that impacts the lives of viewers and their families. A three-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, Tenikka has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years across several markets before coming to Jacksonville in 2014, including Charlotte, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee; and Macon, Georgia.
When Tenikka was six years old and growing up in Whitakers, North Carolina, she was already showing signs of wanting to become a TV news anchor. Tenikka would watch the evening news and then emulate the news reporters with a cassette recorder and hairbrush as a microphone, producing her very own newscast in her living room with her brother, Darryl. Having already learned to read at the age of three, Tenikka would line up her stuffed animals on the couch and read JET magazine to her ‘audience.’
“I loved watching the news ladies on TV as a little girl, particularly the Black news ladies,” she told Jeremy, READ USA’s fictional namesake storyteller of the Jeremy’s Journey book series. “I’m grateful that I got to see women who looked like me, and more than anything, I’m grateful that I’ve been allowed to continue to push the needle forward with representation.”
Having grown up with a large extended family that instilled in her a passion for service and community, Tenikka is focused on positively impacting the lives of children and promoting youth literacy. In 2018, she launched Tenikka’s Books for Kids, an annual book drive donation supported by Action News Jax that provides free books to local children to encourage summer reading through the Jacksonville Public Library. To date, she has collected nearly 30,000 books and last year alone she collected 8,000+ books.
“I am who I am through literacy,” Tenikka also told Jeremy. “I grew up in a single-parent home in a little bitty town with not much money. My siblings and I grew up with three intentional women who provided love, encouragement, and taught us the value of education. Literacy brought me to where I am today.”
As to her recognition as the 2024 Mark Landen Memorial Award for Democracy through Journalism Honoree, “I love to see the team effort at READ USA around supporting literacy for our children. I’m a big supporter of READ USA’s mission and feel honored to be part of it.”
You can read more about Tenikka by ordering her Jeremy’s Journey book for $20/copy here.