Quotes by Jessica Savitch

• The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.
• The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.
• The relationship between talent and management is uneasy, at best.
• The single life is not one I willingly chose for myself.
• To get it first is important - but more important is to get it right.
• Walking into a room filled with people you don't know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.
• When for so long you can't get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.
• When I first anchored in 1970, I had never seen a woman anchor a news show.
• The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.
• Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.
• When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it would not have been possible for me to say, I want to be an anchorwoman when I grow up.
• What is the value of sticking a microphone in a man's face right after he has learned of his wife's death?
• The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.
• The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.
• The bad news is that 50 people died in a hotel fire; the good news is that we got exclusive footage.
• Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.
• Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.
• Television is intensely personal.
• Being a novelty had its advantages.
• Although I was entirely relaxed on camera, if I had to stand up and say something to an assembled group of people, I was rendered all but inarticulate.
• A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You're flesh and blood.
• A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.
• The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me.
• Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.
• The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.
• Women may not have it easy, but we are given a fairer chance to reach for the top.
• Women were seldom given quality assignments or adequate air time.
• You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.
• Women didn't want to watch other women on television because they were jealous of their husbands' diverted attention.
• Never refuse an assignment except when there is a conflict of interest, a potential of danger to you or your family, or you hold a strongly biased attitude about the subject under focus.
• News events are like Texas weather. If you don't like it, wait a minute.
• News events cannot be controlled, nor can newscasts be mapped out like entertainment shows.
• News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it's only successful if it's received.
• Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.
• No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.
• One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.
• Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.
• Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they're gang wars and racial riots.
• Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.
• In interviews I gave early on in my career, I was quoted as saying it was possible to have it all: a dynamic job, marriage, and children. In some respects, I was a social adolescent.
• By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.
• For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.
• I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked?
• I hadn't realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.
• I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.
• I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.
• How valuable NBC Magazine was in my career is questionable.
• In every interview I have ever read or seen or taken part in, the final question in our future-oriented society is always, What next?
• My most lucrative job in college was a stint as the regional Dodge Girl.
• In real life, events seem much less dramatic.
• In the beginning, my mother humored me when I told her I wanted to be a reporter.
• It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.
• It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS.
• Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.
• Men still control the news, both on and off camera.
• Mistakes are not always the result of someone's ineptitude.
• My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.
• My goal was to be a network correspondent by the time I was 30.
• I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.