Becoming A TV News Anchor

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a TV news anchor. Okay, there we go. I realized early on that I enjoyed finding out information and then telling it to others. I’ve always been very comfortable speaking in front of people. Did anyone have Channel 1 at their school? I know I’m probably aging myself, but it was students telling the news and I was obsessed with it every day. That was my dream. I wanted to be one of those students. By the time I entered high school, I knew one day I was going to be a TV news reporter and then eventually an anchor.

Now, for anyone who maybe has questions about those two roles, a reporter is the picture on the left, someone that’s usually out in the field, gathering information, putting a story together, anchor on your right, someone who’s usually in the studio, working with producers and writers, putting together the newscast and is mostly inside and on camera throughout the show.

So that’s what I did. I went to the University of Texas and graduated with a broadcast journalism degree. I volunteered at our campus TV station, which is now TSTV, Texas News Channel. It was called KVR Way back when. And then I got my first job in Corpus Christi, Texas as a TV reporter. So traditionally, in TV news, you have to start off in a small market. For example, Corpus Christi’s Market 130, Austin’s 35, New York is 1, so you have to work your way up.

Please keep in mind, this was a long time ago before smartphones and we were documenting everything on social media. I have very few pictures of this time. For people who think that TV news sounds glamorous, I will tell you that 95% of the time, it is not. One of the most common questions I got throughout my career was, “Do you get your hair and makeup done?” The answer is no, not in Austin. If you think that it can be exciting, I will tell you it definitely can be, but you have to be prepared for what you’re getting into. Luckily, since I had wanted to do this for so long, I knew what to expect.

I knew you had to move to a small city. You were going to be making very little money. For me, that was $22,000 a year in 2006. Fortunately, I was able to get to Austin pretty quickly and get a job here, work my way up a little bit, and make just a little bit more money. I started as a morning reporter here, so I was waking up at 2/2:30 in the morning to get to the station, get camera ready, and then make it to my first live shot location by 4:30.

I was doing 4 to 10 live shots a morning on just about anything. It could be breaking news that happened overnight, the big story of the day, big city council meeting that was coming up. We have a lot of events in town, obviously, so I would report on ACL Fest, South by Southwest, the Austin Marathon, anything happening that day, and of course the biggest viewer draw for local news, which is weather.

I had a go bag under my desk like many reporters do, and that bag has a change of clothes, toiletries, and all of your rain gear so that you can be sent out, no matter what the weather is like. In 2008, I went to South Padre Island to cover Hurricane Dolly and amongst many other storms, but we drove down there all day. I stayed in a motel that had no power, had to get up even earlier than usual, put on a little makeup using a flashlight, and do one live shot after another, all morning long, for stations all over the country, as the storm was coming in and then cover the storm as it was happening.

Of course, there were a lot of fun things too. I said it was 95% not glamorous. I got to do some fun events. American Idol was huge for us, so I covered that a lot. I even flew to LA for the finale one year. I interviewed and sang a few sad and off keynotes for Simon Cowell during X Factor auditions in Austin, and then I had the chance to interview and meet dozens of celebrities over the years when they would be in town promoting different films and projects. We’d go to red carpet events during South by Southwest. Yes, that’s my picture with Elijah Wood. And then we did tons of satellite interviews with celebrities too on a daily basis.

A few years after being a reporter here, I was made Weekend Anchor and then Morning Anchor. So again, that’s the one that’s in the studio, working with writers on the show, helping them to put together the show. It’s a lot of thinking on your feet, trying to get out information as quickly as possible. Of course, making sure that information is all correct. I’ll never forget in 2018, when Austin Police were closing in on the Austin Bombing Suspect. I don’t know if anyone remembers that story, but it was obviously huge and for some reason early that morning, I was the only anchor in the whole station. So we went live on air very quickly, just trying to get out the information as quickly as possible. There was a lot of that, getting the news out as it’s unfolding.

Having a long morning show though meant that we got to have a lot of fun too. I was the resident foodie on the morning show, so I got to do all the chef segments and the cooking demos, which I really loved. As one of the morning hosts, I could do anywhere from two to five, six live interviews each morning. So that would be everyone from chefs, authors, city council members, professors, business owners, the governor. I often said I had to learn a little bit about a lot of subjects because I had to be able to go into an interview, do a very quick but compelling interview. I got along so great with my co-anchors and meteorologists, really got to show my personality, and I was living out my dream.

In 2015, my son was born. Obviously, life changed. Waking up at 2:30 and going to bed at 7:30 became increasingly more difficult. Also, working holidays, which is just part of the TV news business, I had accepted, although begrudgingly, and that was less and less appealing after having a child and a family. It is a very demanding business. Unfortunately, it’s not very family-friendly, and while I loved my job, my life outside of TV was struggling a bit, so I made the very difficult decision four years ago to leave my full-time job as a TV news anchor. And then since then, we’ve had the pandemic. My daughter was born. You can still see me on TV a little bit on Spotlight ATX on KVUE, emceeing events around town, moderating panels and creating content on Instagram. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll be back. Thank you.