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A Hautlieu student and aspiring radio host has become a Twitter sensation after her email to a popular Canadian journalist went viral.
17-year-old Kate McKenna reached out to the CBC Montreal reporter, who is also called Kate McKenna, asking if she would like to be a guest on her Hautlieu radio show, 'The Kate McKenna Show'.
The Canadian journalist tweeted a screenshot of the email from the Hautlieu student to her 15,000 followers, captioning it: "This is the best media request I've ever received".
This is the best media request I’ve ever received pic.twitter.com/5A0SFn989v
— Kate McKenna (@katemckenna8) July 2, 2022
The tweet quickly gained a lot of attention on Twitter and now has over 300,000 likes and almost 10,000 retweets.
Hautlieu student, Kate McKenna, was born in Jersey but has lived in Newcastle for most of her life. She moved back to the island a year ago and is studying A Levels in Philosophy, Art and Psychology.
She has aspirations to be a radio presenter and spends a "concerning amount of time on the radio at school".
Kate said: "Whenever I have a free period I will go to the radio room and see if it’s free, and if it is I just hop on!"
Pictured: Kate's dream is to be a radio presenter and she practises on her school radio channel.
The Kate McKenna Show is her newest project and has only been running for three weeks. So far, Kate has explored a wide range of topics on the show including school, movies, Pride, food, embarrassing stories, spirituality and paranormal experiences.
She explained: "The Kate McKenna Show is a personality type show in which I talk about whatever I like. I like things to be light and uplifting, but also we touch on serious topics like mental health or celebrity deaths and the conspiracy around them."
Kate has not interviewed any guests yet for her show, and stumbled across the other Kate McKenna by accident.
She said: "I was bored and feeling a bit low and out of interest I looked up the name 'Kate McKenna' to see if I could find anyone interesting, and the first result was Kate McKenna.
"I could immediately tell by her smile that she is just absolutely lovely!"
Pictured: Kate reached out via email to Kate McKenna, a journalist in Montreal.
The Canadian journalist tweeted a screenshot of the email and it gained rapid online attention.
Speaking from Montreal, she said: "I had to turn off my phone for much of the weekend because my Twitter notifications were so insane that it was destroying my battery."
She added: "I'm not sure why it resonated so deeply with people. I have a hunch that people are especially hungry for 'good' news, or stories of people supporting each other, because the news has been particularly awful the past few years.
"I feel like people are really inspired by the younger Kate McKenna and the way she's pursuing her dream to be a radio announcer. Kate obviously has a talent for making her guests feel at ease and comfortable with her right from the beginning, and that will serve her well in her career."
Kate will be interviewed on The Kate McKenna Show on Hautlieu Radio on Monday 11 July at midday.
Aspiring radio presenter Kate says she feels "grateful and kind of emotional".
She added: "Kate McKenna owes me absolutely nothing - she could have ignored my email and pretended like she did not see it, but instead she decided to take a chance on me. I feel it’s also important to mention, she accepted the interview before she even tweeted out my email, which I think just shows how lovely her character really.
"I'm so excited to talk to Kate. As I have mentioned, she is very sweet and is easy to talk to over email so I can only imagine how great the interview will turn out!"
The Kate McKenna Show will be live:
— Kate McKenna (@KateMcKennaShow) July 3, 2022
Monday 12pm-2pm UK TZ
Thursday 10am-11am UK TZ
I will post any recorded session links that can be found on Spotify x
Enjoy your week????
Radio guest Kate McKenna said: "I think Kate has a really bright future and I'm really looking forward to being on her show next week. Social media in particular is a very tough audience, so if she's won them over, I think she will be a very successful radio announcer.
"I think we're going to have a good chat. We've shared a very strange experience and it'll be great to debrief about it on the radio. I hope she gets tremendous ratings - I have a feeling she will!"
Listeners can find the Haulieu radio station online or via Spotify.
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