Life After TV News

I’ve had a job every year of my life since the age of nine.  It started with a paper route - six days a week rain or shine or minus 30-degree wind chill.  After that came four years of baby-sitting, followed by a stint in fast food before spending the next seven years in retail.

It was after all of that that I finally felt like I got my first “real” job.  Now I’m not saying the other jobs weren’t real jobs, but they weren’t this job.  A position in the field I had been studying for nearly four years prior… Broadcast Journalism.

I was hired at WCCO TV two months before I graduated.  I started as an intern in the News Department. Two months later I was hired as a Production Assistant.  In the seven years that followed I worked my way up the totem pole, first becoming a writer and finally a producer.  Working at the big 4 became the end all-be all for me.  In fact, my family and friends used to joke about me being a ‘lifer’ there.  To be honest… I kind of thought I would be too, but that didn’t happen.

Working in TV news can be extremely exciting.  First there’s the rush that comes with breaking news, getting the details and getting it on air… and preferably before the competition.  Then there’s the fact that it holds its own sense of glamour — the idea that yes, I work in TV and with people who are on TV.  My everyday co-workers were the local-celebrities in the lives of most Twin Cities news watchers.  For me my job was much more than that.  Producing news always gave me a feeling like I had the opportunity to affect change.  I had the opportunity to share all sides of a story that would let people make up their minds about how they want to view that topic or issue.

On the flip side… news has its not-so-glamorous qualities… like an abundance of negative stories.  I feel like news today is filled with too much about what’s wrong in the world and not enough of the good stuff that’s happening.  I don’t think there are enough of the kinds of stories that lift us up and inspire us.  That’s what really lit my fire and got me to step out and start looking at what comes next.  What kind of life exists after a life in TV News?!

My search was a short one and it brought me here to StoryTeller Media & Communications.  I joined the team as a part-time video producer in August and while it was a whole new world to me in some ways, it was also pretty familiar all the same.  I’m not producing newscasts anymore, but I am producing stories and all different kinds at that. Some are meant to teach, some are meant to sell while others, my favorites, are simply meant to inspire.  I love that I get the opportunity to share these stories to a multitude of people.

It’s part of what made the decision to join the team full-time this past May so easy.  I can’t lie… it was a pretty scary thing leaving the only job I’ve known since graduating college.  After all, it was the only security I’d known too.  But here I am a month and half later and I love the path that I’m on.

And while I’m grateful for everything I learned my during my seven years in the TV news biz (it helped me get to where I am today) I’m not sorry to say that I don’t miss it.

Tags: producer, StoryTeller Media & Communications, television news, TV News, WCCO-TV

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