Fall 2005 PDF - Milton Academy

Felicia Taylor ’82Ned Roberts ’93Caroline Cornish Kmack ’94“Glad you brought that up, Jim. The latest research on polls hasturned up some interesting variables. It turns out, for example,that people will tell you any old thing that pops into their heads.”Broadcast News: Where We Are NowIn the 21st century, the landscape ofbroadcast journalism includes not onlylocal and network news, but also cablechannels and related Web sites. The reachexpands even as the ownership of outletscontracts. The 24-hour cycle of today’snews drives the new engines: time andspace must be filled. Viewers can watchthe video clips online—the same clipsendlessly, if they desire. Entertainmentnews and hard news blur. Speechwriterscraft messages mindful of the potential forsoundbites to resonate indefinitely.According to a June 2005 Pew ResearchCenter Survey report, most Americans saythat they like mainstream news outlets. Bywide margins, more Americans give favorablethan unfavorable ratings to their dailynewspaper (80%–20%), local TV news(79%–21%), and cable TV news networks(79%–21%), among those able to ratethese organizations. The margin is onlyslightly smaller for network TV news(75%–25%).In fact, the favorable ratings for mostcategories of news organizations surpasspositive ratings for President Bush andmajor political institutions such as theSupreme Court, Congress and the twomajor political parties.Milton graduates are among those whocapture and broadcast the nation’s news.They believe strongly in the power andimportance of their work to helpAmericans acquire the information theyneed to lead productive lives.Name: Felicia Taylor ’82Station: Co-anchor, NBC 4,New York“If my stories can inform, shape your dayor somehow help people, I’m satisfied. Ifwatching a story [about a financial issue orproduct] gives you a leg up and makes anopportunity available to you, then I’vedone my job.“At the end of the day, I love what I do,”Felicia says, “There’s no such thing as atypical day.”Felicia looks at delivering news as a way toserve the community; capturing those storiesoften requires assertiveness.“If you’re talking to the media, make sureyou know what you want to say,” she says,“then say only what you intend.”Felicia doesn’t make apologies for goingafter her story. To her, it’s a job and aprofession in which luck and perseverancehelped her succeed: to capture the storyand, now, to share it from the anchor’sdesk.“Yesterday [July 27], I watched the shuttlelaunch and it brought back to me the daywhen I was at WLS in Chicago [as anintern], the day of the shuttle Challengerdisaster. I remember sitting in the newsroom,watching this thing go up and justthinking that something didn’t look right,”she says. “It was my first taste of breakingnews. I remember feeling fear, uncertaintyand adrenalin. I remember thinking,‘What is the story? What do we need to tellpeople?’ And that was before the Internet;we didn’t have the same resources.”In Felicia’s early news experience, she witnesseddisaster—she later reported on9/11 and the first Gulf War, too—but businessand financial news reporting haveshaped much of her career. Felicia startedat the Financial News Network (FNN), acable station, in New York before cablewas relevant and before business newshad emerged as “the next big thing.”Felicia had always thought of herself as aproducer. Her first airtime came when theanchor seat of “This Morning’s Business”became vacant, and the program’s managingeditor suggested that Felicia might sitin. The show’s general manager thoughthis girlfriend might do as well in theseat—but an independent analyst of theaudition tapes chose Felicia. There, in thebasement of New York’s old Exxon building,the producer became an anchor.14 Milton Magazine