The Life of Staring Out and Staying in TV News

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Katie Alexander’ and family

Katie Alexander’ and family

A lot of people dream of working in TV news.

But, the odd hours and low pay chase many away from that dream once they get there.

I remember making a number of trips to a local pawn shop, to sell off something, just so I could pay my rent and electric bill.

I sold off stuff passed down from my family, just to make ends meet.

That was years ago, but things have not gotten any better.

The Buffalo News writes that former WIVB Anchor-Reporter Katie Alexander’s goal to become a TV news reporter began in fourth grade in Columbus, Ohio.

“I just knew from a very young age that I wanted to do this,” she said in a telephone interview.

Alexander, 33, who has two young children and goes by her married last name Olmsted, left WIVB and TV news in 2020 for a better work-life balance.

Now on maternity leave from her job as media relations consultant for the Ohio Education Association, Olmsted is the ideal example of the sacrifices necessary to be a TV reporter that led her WIVB colleague and friend Erica Brecher to leave to work in public relations.

In the beginning, Olmsted earned such a low salary that she lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and had so little time to sleep that she cried inside her car between assignments.

She never plans to return to television, making her free to give an unvarnished account of what life is like for a young female TV reporter with children and why many exit the business.

Olmsted didn’t want to leave Western New York to work in a bigger market.

“I absolutely loved Western New York,” she said. “Buffalo was my ambition. We bought a house there. We sat down roots there. This was going to be my forever market because it was the perfect place for our family equidistant between my family in Columbus and my husband's family in Boston. It was an affordable place to live, although not on the salary we were making. It was the dream. It just did not work out.”

Olmsted began her career as an intern at WWNY in Watertown that led to a job as a general assignment reporter after college graduation and eventually was promoted to weekend anchor.

Her starting pay was $10 an hour plus a fraction of the overtime she worked. Much of her salary went to the $750 monthly rent. At times, she shared that with a roommate.

Olmsted said she had the advantage of coming from “a lot of privilege,” with her parents paying her cellphone bills and being there if she ever needed anything.

“One of my gripes with journalism, in general, is the only way you can really make it is if you don't need the money,” she said.

After paying rent, there wasn’t much money to do anything.

“I didn't go out to eat,” she said. “I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My go-to meal was spaghetti with tuna.”

Her story is relatable to just about everyone that works or worked in TV news.

I remember going weeks eating popcorn for every meal because I had no money to buy food.

Now, stations are more focused on profit than they are anything else. so, stories like this are not likely to change. The problem is, people still “want to be on TV” and if you leave a station, management knows they can quickly replace you and more than likely with someone making even less money than you did.

But, the biggest problem with this scenario, the experienced Journalist is becoming extinct. More jobs are being filled with people that really are more interested in being a “personality” or an “influencer” and care nothing about Journalism.

Check the social media pages of the local TV news people in your market and see how many are practicing Journalism and how many are dancing or goofing around on their social media.

Here’s some examples”

The answer to fixing this problem is money. If TV stations would pay more money, demand more experience, the future of TV news could be bright.

But, low pay and an industry filling up with “want to be Kardashians” has TV news going down a very deep dark hole and before anyone knows it, TV news will be like the dying newspaper industry.

There will be no consumers that want to watch it.