ABC 15’s Christel Bell shares her ‘unconventional’ path

Journalists often take interesting paths to the newsroom, whether stumbling into a career or dreaming of it from the start.

Christel Bell, who started as the lead reporter for “Let ABC 15 Know,” the consumer team at ABC 15, in Phoenix in early April, took her own unique journey — and it’s pretty cool.

“My story is just a little unconventional,” Bell said.

The ABC 15 release announcing her hire says, “Bell was practically raised in the newsroom, getting her first taste of life in news when her father brought her to work at KTRK in her hometown of Houston, Texas.”

A visit to a Houston newsroom with her dad set Bell on her path

Her dad wasn’t on the air. “My dad was night cleaning the buildings of the television station, and so I had an opportunity to just go and hang out with him. And so that was kind of like my first time being in a newsroom — didn’t know at that moment that it would come back full circle, you know, but I was just mesmerized. I was just in awe, I was like, ‘Wow.’”

Bell was introduced to Stephanie Frederic, “one of the most memorable people I’ve met,” and came away with a box of Fox Kids Club pencils to hand out to other children at school.

“It was something that was unforgettable for me,” Bell said. “And my dad is

one of those people that takes so much pride in everything that he does, and was just very prideful in the work that he did. And so I just kind of remember that moment.”

Getting involved in public speaking in high school helped shape her path, although for a time she wanted to be a computer systems analyst. “You needed to have good math skills — I hated math — and good logical and analytical skills. I was like, not succeeding in that. So I was like, oh, I may need to reevaluate this.”

But the speaking, she could do. “That is where I said I wanted to use my voice, and I started kind of figuring out that journalism is what I wanted to do. And then that moment came back to me, visiting that television station.”

Bell suffered a health setback in Kansas City

Before coming to Phoenix, Bell worked in Houston, as well as an anchor and reporter in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Kansas City. In 2023, doctors found a cyst on her trachea, forcing her off the air for a few months. She had surgery, but one of her vocal cords remains paralyzed. Stepping away from the anchor desk allows her time to continue to heal, she said.

“There are still some hiccups,” Bell said. “I’m still operating with one vocal cord, but I seem to be doing well. Nothing complicated. I feel capable of doing my job. It just kind of allowed me to step back in this role. I wanted to not leave news entirely, but I still wanted to be able to be in news and still wanted to be able to help my community. I saw this opportunity to give me that.”

Working as an anchor requires more than viewers may realize, Bell said. “People think, oh, it’s just you get up and you read a teleprompter, but there’s so much more. The toll of some of the stories that you cover, the day to day of preparing for the newscast. A lot of that can be stressful, especially during breaking news or prolonged hours. So I just wanted to give myself some time to fully heal.”

Not that the “Let ABC 15 Know” job is a walk in the park.

‘There are ... a lot of people that need help’

“Man, there are a lot of emails and complaints and a lot of people that need help,” Bell said.

“I’m so overwhelmed — like, I want to help everyone — but understanding that we do have a team of volunteers that can help fill in the gaps.”

Bell doesn’t worry about ever running out of stories to pursue.

“I think in this digital age that we live in, crooks are just getting more and more sophisticated. We have AI. And so I think the other part of this position is just education — educating our viewers and our consumers about ways to alert, ways to do your due diligence and making sure you research and look up companies before you give that deposit.”

Meanwhile she is adjusting to joining the ranks of the many people who have moved to Arizona from somewhere else.

“I’m kind of learning that there are a lot of people from different areas here,” she said. “No one’s from here. And I kind of like that, because it’s an automatic conversation starter just to kind of get to know people, see where other people are from and their experiences. I think that’s going to be great for my family and I.”