Seven days a week, 41-year-old Quintin Washington, delivers food to residents around Charleston.
From 10 a.m. to 7 p.m, he is on his bike, determined to get Uber customers their food in a timely and safe manner. But five days a week, he’s doing something else, too. He conducts interviews across the city that made him one of Charleston’s local celebrities. So far, he’s broadcast more than 3,200 discussions on YouTube over 14 years.
“I’ve put in a lot of work, morning, noon and night, just to get all of this stuff done,” Washington said in a recent interview in which he was the focus.
If he has an interview when he is delivering, he typically will get off Uber and do the interview before getting back on his bicycle to drop off food downtown. After work, he uploads his videos to his YouTube channel, Quintin’s Close-Ups.
“I thank God for the people who do watch Quintin’s Close-Ups because they can go any place else to get news. But they choose to come to me and my outlet and see what’s going on in this community,” he said.
It has been four years since the Charleston City Paper last checked in with Washington, when it marked a decade of his online show. At the time, he completed more than 2,000 interviews. Today with another 1,200 interviews in the can he has built a bigger following across platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn.
A video calling
Washington said Quintin’s Close-Ups is a public service, as he earns nothing from it. In fact, he said it started with a calling. When he was in his late 20s, he said he felt guided by God to get information to people in his community about his community.
“A lot of these people are not informed about what’s going on in the community, and they only see snippets of things on television or hear about things on social media,” he said. “ So this is how Quintin’s Close-Ups was created so that I can get that information out to people in a long form format.”
At age 12, Washington wrote a letter to the news director of WCSC TV (Channel 5)
saying that he wanted to be a journalist for the rest of his life. He started working weekends, nights and holidays sitting at the assignment desk, listening to scanners, learning to write scripts, edit videos and learning how to interview.
“Just being on that assignment desk as a kid was just amazing,” he said. “It made you want to go out there and figure out what’s going on and how you can help others.”
Washington later attended the College of Charleston before leaving after one semester when both parents fell ill. Then when he tried to get local news stations to host a quick segment of his show, even with sponsors, they declined.
Over the past 14 years, Washington has built something lasting of his own — independently and without a news station. Now when asked if he plans to take his business to a news station, he did not hesitate to say he wasn’t interested.
“I’m independent,” he said. “I’m able to do what I can do and ask the tough questions without being fearful is anybody going to my boss and saying, ‘We want him gone,’ or whatever.’ ”
Memorable moments
Washington’s work has produced memorable moments. He said his interview with singer Gloria Gaynor, who sings the hit “I Will Survive,” remains the best interview of his career.
“She is a woman of God, humble, very down-to-earth, extremely nice,” he said. “Just an amazing person.”
He has also sat down with politicians, community leaders and everyday Charlestonians including, former Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and former Gov. and U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford.
The people he has interviewed over the years have taken notice of Washington’s channel. Virginia Jamison, a former North Charleston City Council member who has sat down with Washington multiple times since 2016, said she has watched him and herself grow.
“When I went back and viewed myself on Quintin’s Close-Ups, I saw the changes over eight years,” Jamison said. “I saw me being more comfortable in my skin. These are things that you learn when you work with an independent journalist who really cares about the work that he’s doing.”
Jamison said what sets Washington apart from network-affiliated journalists is his willingness to go further. Traditional reporters, she said, tend to follow a script. Washington does not. He calls her between interviews to ask her thoughts on community issues, she said, and his questions during interviews are beyond surface-level.
Jamison said she has advocated for noise reduction in her district since 2010. She said one of Washington’s interviews was included in a federal infrastructure grant application that her district submitted during the Biden administration.
S.C. Rep. Spencer Wetmore, a Democrat who represents District 115 on Folly Beach and James Island, first sat down with Washington in 2020. She said his interview style gives voters something traditional news can not.
“They’re writing about a very specific story or topic whereas Quintin is usually doing a more broad-based profile piece. And I think his questions tend to be either broader or cover more ground in an interview than say a one-topic story,” Wetmore said.
She added that his interview style, having candidates on camera where you can see people react in live time, gives constituents the best medium to know a candidate.
A determined visionary
Washington’s longtime mentor — Fouche Sheppard, an 81-year-old Charleston storyteller — met Washington when he was 10. She said she remembers him then the same way she sees him now.
“He had a vision, and he was determined,” Sheppard said. “He already knew what he wanted to do.”
She said his consistency kept her going too. There were years in which she stepped away from public speaking, but watching Washington showing up for what he wanted kept her coming back.
“I was not going to let this kid outdo me,” Sheppard said.
When asked about the most important thing that 14 years of interviewing has taught him, Washington did not mention editing, camera skills or asking good questions.
“Really listen. Just shut up, and listen to what they’re saying because they’re a guest, and you want to treat them as such,” he said. “I consider this a calling from God to be able to do this public service for the community.”
Jai’La Du Rousseau is a graduate student in arts journalism at Syracuse University.
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