Megan went viral on the social media platform by sharing parts of her life that Channel 5 viewers might not otherwise see. Megan also has a TikTok account where she strategically grew her account to 1.8 million. She posted a video on Twitter on March 17, 2020, of herself and her dog dancing and totally having a good time. In fact, she recently responded on TikTok to the news that Ohio was introducing its own version of Florida's controversial bill.Mollie Lair-Reporter Megan Mitchell Dancing | TikTok “Nobody was up in arms about gay people for a few years after marriage equality passed, but now it’s political again, and these dramatic comments and debates are happening.” “The first couple of years I was doing TikTok, the comments were good, but it wasn’t until later that things started becoming political - like with the ‘ Don’t Say Gay’ bill,” she notes. That also extends to real life: Last year, Mitchell posted a video of herself opening a hateful letter from a reader who quoted the Bible and called her sinful. While her comments section is overwhelmingly positive, she says she does get hate from these individuals. On the flip side, her videos sometimes end up on what she calls the “wrong side of TikTok” - aka, on the For You Pages of homophobes. Others are from people who have come out later in life and want to thank Mitchell for sharing her story. Sometimes it’s from people who are afraid to tell their parents about their sexuality. Mitchell says that it’s the messages she receives from other queer people on TikTok that keeps her making videos. After a week of negotiations, they finally let it air - but it was a moment where I realized that employers won’t directly say, ‘Oh, we’re against this,’ but they’ll say everything else.” This has to do with the LGBTQ+ content in this.’ And when I said that, they froze up. And for me to have that pushed through, I had to use my own identity as a way to move it forward, like, ‘OK, I need you to tell me one more time why this isn’t working. “It’s not only LGBTQ+ content, it’s Native American content. “They were like, ‘Yeah, we’re not airing this, our advertisers wouldn’t approve of this content,’” she says. At a previous job in Bismarck, North Dakota, Mitchell says a reported piece on two-spirit Native Americans was initially turned down. While Mitchell is very happy at her current workplace, and is thrilled that her coworkers are as excited as she is about making LGBTQ content for TikTok, she says that there’s a long way for news to go in terms of accepting and embracing her community. Another features her dad embracing Mitchell’s girlfriend. One TikTok shows them throwing her and her younger brother (who came out after Mitchell did) a rainbow-filled party for Pride. She’s been candid about how her parents have now fully embraced who she is, after initially being unsupportive of her after she came out at 19. Much of what she films is from behind the scenes at the news desk, but her account also features plenty of TikTok dances and trending sounds - and she gets personal, too. She could be the openly queer broadcaster she didn’t initially see when she was looking towards her future career path. It was for that reason that Mitchell - who started her TikTok account in 2020 - chose to use her social media platform to set an example. The post, set to “You Might Not Like Her” by Maddie Zahm, shows Mitchell struggling to come to terms with being queer - from not understanding why she “freaked out” after kissing a girl to realizing that the feelings she thought were romantic towards her gay male best friend were about being “attracted to femininity.” She captioned the post, “Comp het made it so hard for me to realize,' referring to “compulsory heterosexuality,” or “comp het,” the idea that because heterosexuality is the cultural norm, it can be challenging for people who don’t fall into that label to realize, or be willing to recognize, that they are queer. She recently went viral for a video she made chronicling her journey to accept her sexuality. Mitchell has more than 1.8 million followers on TikTok, and uses the platform to share her experiences as an out lesbian working in news. The 29-year-old Connecticut native is an anchor and reporter at WLWT News 5 in Cincinnati, but her reach goes far beyond Ohio, thanks to her successful social media platform. Local news broadcaster Megan Mitchell is using her TikTok to remind other members of the LGBTQ community that they don’t have to hide who they are. Megan Mitchell talks about her journey to broadcasting.

Megan mitchell news anchor