Innovation Insider

Stuart Boslow never wanted to work in television. The 43-year-old director of innovation at KHOU-TV Channel 11 was studying to be a radio professional at West Texas A&M University.

“I quite literally stumbled into TV news during college,” Boslow says. “I had been studying to work in radio as a DJ and in programming until the summer between my sophomore and junior years. I didn’t want to move back home, so I took a job as a producer at the local CBS affiliate, and I fell in love with it. The storytelling, the breaking news, the process of digging and informing became incredibly interesting to me. I was hooked, and that was 25 years ago now.”

Like many in the business, he moved around a lot, working his way up—from a producer in Reno, Nevada, to executive producer in San Antonio and, many moves later, ending up as the director of innovation at Houston’s KHOU-TV in 2021.

“Isn’t that a fun title?” he asks. “As the station’s director of innovation, I help oversee our news product. What does it look like? How does it feel? What does it sound like? Everything from the set and graphics to the words and phrases our producers, reporters, and anchors are writing. I’m a bit of a tech nerd, too, so this role has allowed me to dive into some of our newsroom and production processes and technology to help find solutions to better serve our audience by alleviating roadblocks that may have been getting in our colleagues’ way.”

Boslow lives happily in Houston now with his husband of seven years, Chad, and their fur baby, Dobby. But being gay and out hasn’t always been easy for him. “Early on in my career, I did face discrimination,” Boslow says. “I once had a colleague chastise me for putting in a story about a Pride parade. This person told me that I was ‘pushing my agenda.’ That wasn’t the case at all. It was literally a 15-second story about a massive event in our community in which many of our community leaders were in attendance. It’s a moment that’s stuck with me for 23 years. It took me a while to realize that it actually had nothing to do with me, but was about that person’s ignorance and lack of education.”

Since then, Boslow has found acceptance and enjoyment in television, particularly at KHOU.

“There are so many aspects of my job here that are fun,” he says. “The thrill of chasing and covering weather will always be one of my favorite things I do. Getting to think outside the box on coverage of big events like the Final Four that was just in Houston, or bringing things like last year’s Pride parade in Houston to life for our viewers, is also incredibly rewarding. No day here is ever the same.”

Last year, Boslow co-wrote an editorial for the Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) on news coverage of the monkeypox crisis. “On the heels of the pandemic, we were being faced with yet another health crisis,” he says, “one that was mainly focused on the LGBTQ community. No, it wasn’t fatal in most cases, but what people failed to realize early on is that monkeypox infections had very serious effects that reached far beyond a person’s body. The LGBTQ community very quickly realized that we had to take matters into our own hands, and as such I needed to be the voice in our newsroom calling for coverage, demanding answers from our city, county, and state health leaders. I am incredibly proud of the work our station did to bring light to the outbreak, push for vaccine coverage, and educate our audience to dispel misinformation about what was happening.

“When I connected with LGBTQ colleagues in other newsrooms, it was evident that they were feeling the same concerns and frustration,” Boslow recalls. “That led us to sitting down together and writing that editorial piece to help engage newsrooms across the country to think more critically and effectively about their own monkeypox coverage, and I cannot thank RTDNA enough for giving us a platform to share that voice and experience.”

So, what does Pride Month mean to Boslow? Quite a bit.

“Pride has evolved for me as I’ve grown, not only as a person, but as a gay man, and also as a gay person in news,” he says. “Pride isn’t something that just happens in June. It’s a 365-day-a-year mindset. It never stops, because it can’t. Honor the meaning of Pride in June, sure, but don’t limit yourself to one month. Be engaged in it all year round. Speak up. Tell your story. Share your experience. And most of all, live your truth. That, to me, is Pride—no matter the month.”

Keep up with  Stuart Boslow on Instagram @stewieb80.