Now for the News

Claire Richardson '14, B.A. Communications

While many folks are trying stay awake for the 10 p.m. news, Claire Richardson's "day" is just beginning. That's when her work as producer and anchor for the morning news show for WHSV, the ABC affiliate in Harrisonburg, Va., is just getting underway. While it took her some time to adjust to the overnight hours, Claire says her favorite part of the job is working with her great morning team. "Even though the hours can be brutal, and the job stressful, everyone is always dedicated to pulling their own weight and helping out when things get busy to make sure everything gets done."

Being a relatively small market Harrisonburg doesn't have as much breaking news as larger markets, making one of Claire's biggest challenges finding enough local content to fill a two-hour show. That requires working with reporters, other affiliate stations, and sister stations to gather content from around the area. Contrary to popular perception—and adding to the stress—her morning show does not have a large crew. Indeed, she reports, "a few people do it all." She even runs the teleprompter herself with a foot pedal under her desk. "When news breaks, we have to try and get the information, write a script, make a graphic, put it on the web and produce it into a show during one of our two-minute commercial breaks."

Although producing is the majority of her responsibility, Claire also anchors. That's where the real fun comes in, she says, because she gets more of an opportunity to show her personality than she would on an evening show. "Yes, it can be tiring to go to the desk and exude energy after a night of producing," but Claire copes by reminding herself that "anchoring is what people see, and they'll be judging me on that two-hour portion of my ten-hour day."

The daughter of an Air Force officer, Claire was born in Japan and attended high school in Germany. Having family in Austin, she began looking at Texas colleges and chose Trinity after its state-of-the-art communications center caught her eye. She had known since high school that she wanted to study communications but wasn't sure which aspect of that career field she would pursue.

Working for Tiger TV enabled Claire to practice news writing, become comfortable on camera, and accumulate enough clips to create a talent reel. Her senior capstone project involved interviews with San Antonio television anchors, which proved helpful after graduation. Thanks to the contacts she made during that project, Claire was invited to shadow producers on the Fox News First morning show. She began arriving every morning at 3 a.m. to learn from the producers. After a month as an "honorary intern," Claire landed a job at News4, where she honed her writing skills, joined morning photographers on shoots, and further built up her talent reel. A merger between News 4 and Fox led to a layoff, but Claire remains grateful for the invaluable experience. Within months she landed her current job as producer/anchor for WHSV.

"After getting the position at WHSV, I received multiple emails from former professors wishing me well. Hearing from these professors and knowing that they were still invested in my success even though I had been out of school for a year meant a lot to me," she says. She is especially grateful to professors Bill Christ and Jennifer Henderson who were helpful as she worked out a plan to "get a foot into the industry."

Although Claire loves her job, she admits there is a down side. "Because of my weird schedule and long hours, it can be hard to find time to have a life outside of work." When time permits, she visits family in nearby Charlottesville but spends most of her weekends "just hanging out with friends and co-workers downtown or just catching up on sleep." For now, the man in her life is Timothy, a cat she adopted, and she tries to volunteer at the shelter where she adopted him once a week.

Obviously hardworking and extroverted, this young producer/anchor plans to stay in broadcast journalism with hopes of moving up in media markets. However, she adds, "At this point, I'm not sure where I want to end up, location wise, but I'm hoping that's something I'll figure out as I move up in my career."