OTV Belong Women's History Month Panel

living my life like it's golden living my life like it's golden living my life like it's golden living my life like it's golden living my life for me I just admire any woman like Cheryl said that's juggling both home and office and we continue to excel in the workplace especially women in leadership um the one thing that I love about the Disney intern program is that there are young women that are coming into this industry who are eager to learn and they welcome a few male Mentor who is or isn't a leader or in the leadership role I should say to guide or you know or advise them on their career paths um I remember growing up my my dad would always say sit back and watch the room just watch and see how others move you don't always have to be the first one to speak or um say something you know when I was younger I would go hi my name is FAA what's your name you know and so um there are many I thought about that and when you ask this question there are many young women who are watching women in leadership roles and witnessing this female leader complete her task or complete her obstacles time and time you know time and time again and they're wondering I can do that you know they're they're crushing their well they're looking at the women in leadership Crush their go and so they're telling themselves if she can do it I can do it seeing a woman in leadership is inspiring these interns that come into um our Newsroom and seeing women in leadership is also inspiring to women in at Disney today so you never know who's sitting back and watching you and making all the while you're inspiring them to go ahead and step out on faith and make their own moves and accomplish their own goals and I would definitely agree with that because uh I think that it's fantastic to have younger women able to look up and see some one who looks like them and who can relate to them but I also think for some of us who've been around for a minute or two it's great for us to see women in leadership as well and to see how perhaps uh the same job that a man held until you know last year this time or a decade ago how they do things differently um I won't ever say better I think mostly it's different but but it is very inspiring for us for instance to have a general manager much like cheral who is a woman and you feel as though um you learn different skills from them it's it's it's not better or worse but you learn different skills and Cheryl has certainly addressed that in terms of uh how a newsroom operates but I I watch the women leaders around me uh very carefully because it does help you to improve perhaps what you present to other people it's I I love how you're you're talking about how we can include all layers of of ourselves um and what we do and it really brings to mind a question I see it just came up Nica is asking this question uh for those of you who are moms or caretakers outside of the office how do you maintain work life balance and take care of yourself and if if I could start with this this is a constant question for myself I have three children um who have a lot of activities and I have a lot of responsibilities I pursued my Master's Degree while I was still working and having kids and I F I feel like it's always changing and I have to be open to the fact that I'm not always going to have the answer but what I have learned is to have Grace with myself and ask others to have Grace with me including my children that you know Mommy might get it wrong I literally took my daughter to the wrong basketball team uh two days ago yeah it was like 7 o'clock at night and she showed up and we're like oh my goodness you're not on this team anymore a little embarrassing um but it's it's having that Grace to say all right I messed up but it's it's going to be okay and also knowing when one thing has to for me one thing might have to be accelerated a little more while another thing slows down so going riding that gas and brake pedal sometimes it's a little bit more that you have to do at work than other times it's a little more at home but I'm a little more comfortable now in knowing that I won't always have the answer and that's okay how do you all manage uh being in a lot of cases primary caregiver in a job that do does not stop we we go 247 I may jump in on this I I don't have children of my own um I've got a couple of nephews a couple of nieces but I have to say that my generation uh of news reporters when I was kind of getting into the business as a young woman we were busy being man in skirts and so we didn't want to you know run the risk of of having to deal with kids when you wanted to be sent to you know Germany to on a big story or something like that so as I look back on it there are some regrets that I have and one of them is would I have been able to kind of balance it um the flip side of that is I have an elderly father my dad's in his 90s um former Pastor I guess you're never a former pastor but retired from being a pastor some years ago and early this year he was very ill and we uh he got covid we had to put him in the hospital and uh he was there for almost three weeks and I just called in and Saidi can't make it I just will not be there until he's better and it wasn't that long ago that I would not have made that as much of a priority as I need to now um so I I'm always so envious of you women who can have 10 balls in the air at the same time even if it's at the wrong basketball team um but it is so important at some point in your your career to recognize that your life is a lot more important than your job and the lives of so many other people it's a lot easier said than done and I always look at women like you Tonda and I think how can she do all of those things at the same time get a master's degree and have three kids but um as with most women leaders you look around and you realize that there are a lot of people who are able to do it and uh you just have to kind of make it work and I love the idea of giving yourself Grace I wish I'd learned that skill a lot earlier too because I'm constantly second guessing myself but but it is whether it's your parents your kids your best friend your dog whatever at some point in your life you have to recognize there will always be disasters but you don't always have the opportunity to be there and really uh advance that relationship whatever it may be would you like I I'll jump in there too um look I think that everybody agrees with this idea of giving yourself a little Grace I'm not sure that it actually is possible to find true work life balance um especially if you're in news um the news Gods wait for No One and when things happen you have to respond and depending on what your job is you may not have a choice about whether you pick your family over the news event of the moment and my my children who are now adults um always talk about how they had a different upbringing as news kids they called themselves and we always used to say when everybody else's parents were coming home their parents were leaving to go respond to whatever the the the crisis of the moment was and that was how they grew up and and my way of uh explaining how you manage this is as long as your kids know that you love them and that you're there for them as much as you possibly can be and for those really important moments and we all know what they are they have to learn to understand how important this work is to you and that there are going to be times where you are going to choose the work over them because that's the most important thing at that moment and they have to learn how to process that and be part of that and I actually think it helped me to raise very strong I have two daughters who are those people who know them they're very strong they're very independent and and I think that was part of what they learned growing up because of that yeah and my my daughters watch and and learn and and love too when when Mom's really doing her thing like it might mean I can't make it to every activity but they're proud of me but they also know when it snows I'm not going to be home making snowmen with you I'm going to go in early and work late and and that's what I do so kids forgive because this is a really popular question because someone else is asking how do you face the guilt though of not being with your kidss and I think Cheryl you touched on that saying that your kids love you they forgive you um and they they can see what you're doing and it's not just for your career it's for your entire family that you're doing this you're doing work for the community you're doing work that matters that's important and and if you find yourself feeling guilty about it that's where you allow yourself some Grace exactly have that experience I have that experience all the time both because both of my children are in sport and they're different ages so um it's not easy at all and sometimes I just feel like if I'm not letting this one down I'm letting this one down or I'm letting um someone at work down so um it it's frustrating um and I'm in agreement you do have to give yourself some Grace and I just um like excuse me I I just tell them every day I love you this is for us you know and I got to be present you know when I can um boundaries and time management also though yeah so I'm I'm practicing that I'm trying to get that going in 2024 and balancing my home work life balance and trying leaving on time and making maybe the ending of the game I wasn't there at the beginning but here I am now so um it's a working proc migrant ands like everyone wins a little bit so exactly you're giving something to everyone I once heard someone say too um there's no such thing as work life work life balance it's a work life mix you're mixing it all and and somehow it's going to work together when you're you know whether it's family or or you know activities things in the community all of that then too goes back to we're still working in a very high demand career and like any career you want to to work your way up so what's your advice to someone who might feel frustrated a woman who might feel frustrated about her career trajectory and maybe not knowing how to get to where she wants to be what's your advice to a woman who's facing that so I I have a couple of of suggestions here for one let somebody know what you want you know really tell your bosses what your goals are talk to your bosses let them understand understand what you want and then show them that you're capable of it you know I I I always like to say when we hire someone for a job we're really not hiring them for the job that's open we're hiring them for the next job because you you want to hire somebody who's who you know is going to be able to grow and develop and and advance so make decisions take actions in your normal job that show them you're thinking about that next step you're thinking about um how to get to where you want to go show them your thinking like that next job so um if you're a producer and you want to be an executive producer when you're making decisions during the day think about what if I were the executive producer how would I be handling the situation what would I be suggesting and make that suggestion and let them see that you can be kind of a bigger thinker yeah um and not just focused on the task at hand that's amazing advice that's very good advice yeah I mean fisha or Melanie this rolls into another H question about have you faced any roadblocks in your career and and how did you navigate around those we're talking about career trajectory you w to go I don't you know what honestly I don't think I I've encountered any roadblocks at least that that I've noticed you know um I would say I yeah and that's a great thing that's that's not I mean not that I can't if I did I can't remember them you know like um I just think figuring it out and making sacrifices and it's a work in progress for sure but I don't think that um my only roadblock would probably be trying to make it work the home life mix and um yeah that we make but well and and while I wouldn't say there are any obvious roadblocks obviously over the years you've had to learn how to speak up in meetings for instance um there was a time when I felt as though if I make a suggestion and every woman is felt this at some point or another if I make a suggestion in the room full of largely male uh counterparts nobody's listening the guy next to me can say the exact same thing two minutes from now and it's genius and we run off and do it as though it were his idea so I don't necessarily know that that's a roadblock in my career I think it's something that virtually every woman in the workplace has faced at one point or another including now when there are so many women in The Newsroom still hear that conversation sometimes um I think and fisha you may have said this that you spend a lot more time listening uh and not always talking which is something those of us who are on the air probably suffer from it was uh pretty funny to Ronda when you talked about what inspired you about uh about getting into the business and I always tell kids especially if you like reading and writing and you're nosy this is the place for you um but sometimes you have to also be able to shut up and listen and figure out what the next step may be and so sometimes I think the roadblocks are self-made and other times you just have to figure out okay if they're not listening to my idea this time let me figure out a way around it and get into the next place where I want to be um but I I I can't say anything super um horrific has happened over the years but again it's sort of that double-edged sword again being both the female you kind of go hm did they not like that idea because of me or because you know I just wasn't in the right flow at that moment and i' I've experienced that same thing like working in environments where you're going wait why am I being looked at differently as a black woman for instance I can remember you know being in one Newsroom where a white male colleague would regularly um curse out other people in The Newsroom whether that's a producer another reporter and that's just the way that person is I though got called um you know scary or intimidating for looking at my watch during a meeting because I knew I needed to get out of there so those types of things where I I'm wondering well how do I navigate this without coming off as something that I'm not but while still being feeling like I can express myself I also worked at a time um you know you would share this with me melie but I don't know if it's at the same station but at some stations that I was at where I was the only black woman because because in their minds there could only be one at the time or they only had to have one um so that created everything from you know that paranoia about how am I being perceived to competition or whether it be perceived or real if there was another black woman in the environment and learning how to go against that and instead support each other instead of competing with each other that was something that that I really had to navigate and learn and become because it wasn't my initial experience so working around that has really been a learning experience and is the reason why now I try to make sure that I welcome other women into the fold because I don't want them to feel like it's a competition I should say when I got here that's the experience that I received when we're so welcoming and amazing that I I was taken aback because it just was not what I become accustomed to which is a shame so we have to all continue that going and we all certainly know that angry black woman bid um painted with exactly and it was a trying to educate too the person who made that assumption and say hey here's the stereotype that you just fed into and this is why I think it's not fair without actually becoming angry try doing that um do any of you think agism is an issue still for women in news oh yeah I think so um I feel pretty blessed that here at this station I've not had to suffer from that as much um but I do think agism is certainly a real thing just like I think sexism still exists out there uh I I find that these days I spend a lot less time worrying about being glamorous like I used to and a lot more time worrying about my gravitas and am I able to bring the proper amount of um you know seriousness and and wait to stories that are important to me there things that I cover now that I would never have considered um some years ago and so you you certainly grow into the uh into the role but yeah there are times when you still look around and you go hm now that guy over there is able to be 110 in The Newsroom and nobody seems to worry about it but they treat you know some of the women a little bit differently um but I I will say I've been very blessed to work in a place where I feel valued for the most part yeah that that's amazing that's I remember my daughter asked me one time when she was really little mama why don't I see any women with gray hair on the news and I just had to stop and look back and I went oh my goodness she's right she was like eight um and I I think we are more valued for who we are rather than how old we are more more so than ever um but I think we have to continue to work at that and see like you know are will any of us be able to be silver haired on the air you know that'll be nice if we could do that one day um but but I think that there's been progress too because I have a friend who got a job it a few years ago in a top market and she just was convinced I won't get anything no one will look at me because I'm 40 and she was wrong she was hired and she's fantastic and phenomenal at her job and that really just gave me so much just hope and inspiration that hey we don't have an expiration date when it comes to our abilities and news well I think that goes back to women leading too I I think Cheryl will look at somebody very differently than perhaps uh her male counterpart of it and hopefully that's changing a whole lot U because we are sort of intermix there but but I do think that that has a lot more to do with women who see the whole you yeah Cheryl can you talk a little bit more about that about women in leadership positions and the difference it makes and also one person is asking how can we improve female representation in the managerial ranks so um in terms of women seeing other women differently in the workplace when it comes to the agism thing I do think that is true um you know it's funny because um every once in a while an anchor who has worked for me has come to me and said oh I'm gonna have to do this or that and keep my looks and I looked at I said if I said anything did I did I sell you to do anything no I said then why are you even thinking about this you know I said I I am at a certain age I said you know I'm looking at you Through My Lens right I said I see a capable experienced person who has a lot to offer here right that's how you need to think of yourself at this point um and as far as getting more female representation one I think we've made huge strides over the last 20 years especially made and really accelerated that dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years It ultimately starts with who you're hiring for the entrylevel positions and who you're hiring to write and who you're hiring to produce and who you're hiring and bringing up through your system so there has to be a commitment to that early in the process I mean I wouldn't be where I am today if someone didn't see that value in me many many years ago and and interestingly in my case it was an all maale management team that I came to work for at wpv who was unbelievably fabulous to me um I I came from a station where I found out years later the reason I had gotten hired I thought they thought I was brilliant and a great writer and all of those things I'd gotten hired because somebody thought I was a woman who wouldn't make any trouble oh wow um they they they discovered quickly they had made a mistake in that area but um but then I went to work at pvi where you know you talk about um women you know men in skirts I was one of the guys I was treated as one of the guys and I actually welcomed that I I felt like I was on an even playing field I felt like I was being treated equally that I had equal opportunity and and that inspired me to try harder and harder and and I think um you have to look at who you're bringing in and grow them and and so if you want a management team that is reflective of your Market which is what I think you should have have um you you want to have a management team that that looks like the people we serve and understands the people that we serve you have to hire people who are reflective of your Market early on and grow them that's big yeah that's really big that's one of the things that that stations are getting right the ones that are doing that what other things do you think we're getting right when it comes to representation of women in journalism fisha what are you seeing what do you think is being done right um well I I'm when I started I was young and I'm in agreement with Cheryl when she said to start them young and then to teach them and show them um my work ethic has definitely changed since I started and I really and I I honestly feel as though I'm still learning I'm still learning this panel is even though I'm on the panel I am learning so much you know um and I um I don't know I just I get what you're saying yeah I really do where you're you're you're part of what part of what it is that Sherl is saying in in in hiring in hiring women or hiring people that that represent your market and so um I see that in our leadership team I see that in our leadership uh Team here at at WLS our we have our um our news director Jennifer Grace um who has been here for 32 years um we have our assistant news director na who is a female um she represents you know she's representing our Market our community um our director of design is Lisa our operations uh what what is she our media operations manager Natalie our building manager kmen I'm surrounded by so many profound women that are in leadership roles here at WLS that it's it's a it's a great it's a great opportunity it's a great opportunity to learn not only just um from my point of view but from others in other areas within the building so we've come a long way we're respected we're sitting at the heads of tables we're making decisions that continue to pave the way for those young women that are coming right behind us so it's inspiring and and all of it and and Nea commented of course you too F you're one of those amazing women what do you see that's being done right um I think uh as I look around and certainly as I'm listening to her name off some of their managers at this point many of our managers in The Newsroom and certainly down the hall are women and so you have this wonderful example of how to uh accomplish and how to work with uh other people at that level at the management level I also think that many of The Hires that we make um are so extraordinary now it used to be you know whether we gave ourselves a break or not about it that there was a lot more to the looks and a lot less to the substance and that is definitely not the case anymore uh I look at so many of the young women that have been hired in The Newsroom over the last uh period of time and they are not only lovely people you know great mothers and wives but they're brilliant reporters they're hardworking um and I look at them and I think wow I'm so proud of the people that they have become and the way our business has changed so that they are out there and they are available I mean you go to certainly some of the national conventions when I go to the National Association of black journalists I'm just blown away by by some of the people that I meet there and certainly some of the young women um I think they're a lot more surefooted than we were at one point I think they know their strengths a lot better um and they're I I love the idea that you're working with other women you're not trying to Elbow them out of the way so you can be the only one in the room whatever that mean means um so I'm just really encouraged by the caliber of people that we work with now and so many of them are women who have made their way up the uh up the chain of command or up the ladder without leaving bodies in their wake um because we've certainly seen that and and not only among you know The Newsroom in general but often among women and and I don't see very much of that anymore thankfully yeah that the change that I seen like some of it it's it's I think my role is is one of the changes I've seen because I cover race and culture and that includes you know women's issues people with disabilities different ages veterans like people of all cultures and those are things that like I remember some of these stories I said I would only get to do these in February and other places that I work and now back that we are covering all of these stories and issues and people as a priority I've never seen seen that before and I've never seen like the the fact that we're open to talking about so much um last year almost about a year ago I it was unexpected um that I shared my journey on social media dealing with fibroids and I thought you know nobody really wants to hear this but I'm just you know letting everyone know because I'm going to be off the air for a few months and the station and everyone really embraced that and embraced that people wanted to talk about it and I never ever thought like I was reluctant to even say fibroids and here we are looking at it like oh this is an actual issue that we can talk about that people need to know about and we're going to give you a platform to try to help other people so I'd never experienced anything like that so I think it's fantastic that we can talk about so many different things now um we have time for a few more questions and I see one um that oo this is this is a little I don't know I hesitate to ask myself questions like this but the person who typed it in they're Anonymous but they say looking back over your long and amazing careers is there anything you wish you'd done differently that can be a really a tricky question a slippery slope and I'll combine it with something else that we were going to talk about which is um what would you tell your younger self so if you want to tackle one or the other if if I can start um I I can't say differently because one little change would basically not put me where I am right now and where I am right now is where I believe I'm supposed to be so I wouldn't do anything differently on that level but if I could tell my younger self something I would tell my younger self don't have one definition of success because for so long especially in this business I thought of one thing and one thing only when it came to this is going to mark that you've made it and that was wrong well not wrong but it needed to be adjusted to meet how I grow as a person and how I can meet the opportunities that came to me so that's been very recent where I've had to figure out that my definition of success was too limited um and also I'm going to Echo something Melanie you said earlier which is you are more than what you do you are more than your job and there's so much to there's so many layers to all of us that all of them have to be fed so don't have that one definition and don't think you're only one thing who wants to add to that you know what you would tell your younger self or if there's anything you would change you know I would probably say trust yourself um because there's so many times and I've told you how often I second guess myself there's so many times when I want to do a story and everybody else kind of turns their nose up at it and then eventually I talk my way into it and it turns out to be really interesting your five boy story is a perfect example uh I did one on people over the age of a 100 and uh including a woman now who is 114 and the oldest person in the country who lives not that far away from uh from us here at the station but there were so many times when I would come in and because I was the only fill in the blank black person in the room woman in the room um you know college graduate whatever it was I would think oh well obviously I just don't know what's happening and I I wouldn't push so I think that as I said the young women that I look at now are Farm more self-confident in so many ways I love the idea that everybody goes to the gym all the time and that they have all of these interesting hobbies and things but but I think I would tell my younger self hey you got it going on trust yourself a little bit more um I I have a similar situation to what happened to you I have MS and I've had it for multiple sclerosis I should spell it out and I've had it for now probably close to 30 years and for the long longest I I spent a lot of time trying to hide that or trying to figure out ways to get around it and as I look back on it I realized that my coming out coming out as it was really helped a lot of other people and that's a situation where again had I just trusted myself right up front I might have done it differently but other than that I I I don't have a lot of regrets nice Sherl or fisha fisha you want to go uh okay um I would say to control your own destiny or someone else will uh be assertive know your worth and um speak up for what you want speak up for what you want um I know sometimes um some people don't want to have difficult conversations don't be afraid to have those difficult conversations um what what you make think is small no what what they may think is small you may think is very is is is a big deal so um have those speak up and have those difficult conversations what I would tell my younger self so what I what I think I would tell everybody maybe sound surprising these are just jobs they're just jobs remind yourself all the time that are just jobs the much more important piece of this are the people that you meet the relationships you develop over all these years that you do this those are going to be the things that are most meaningful to you as you make your journey those people that you meet early in your career are going to be your lifelong friends as you make this journey through this business um the People You Meet along the way are are the people you learn learn from uh how you are treated by those people that you meet May determine how you treat others on the journey it's it's so much more about that personal contact than it is about any job that you have and and I think what I would have told my younger self is stop worrying so much I worried about everything everything yes worried about I I worried about everything and and the advice I got from somebody many many years ago that really has become the watch word for me is if it's not going to be important in five years then it's not really important yeah and so anything you get upset about at work if it's not going to be a big deal still in five years then let it go focus on the stuff that is going to be big in five years save yourself the stress you know look we we have to wrap up in a second I'm sorry we can't get to all the questions that we but one more thing because there's so many women who are asking the questions who are looking for that that inspiration that motivation and they're getting it but I want to know what is your challenge to the women in news now moving forward I use that word strategically Challenge and if if I can start I would say my challenge is to be Fearless to do what we have done but take it so much further because I really want to see what's possible I think as much as we've achieve now there's so much more that's out there coming from that new generation who really has that spunk and that fire and and doesn't know a lot of the boundaries that we were taught so what are your challenges to the next generation of women in news I'll take that one my challenge is to make sure you bring others with you it's never a journey you go on by yourself I'm in agreement with that Cheryl I'm so in agreement with that I mean I know I I've said this several times but I wouldn't be here if no one didn't reach back for me to make sure that I was brought along at towards the ending of her journey really I really would nothing so Melanie well that's definitely my Mantra there were a lot of people who helped me and and the best you can do is always reach whether it's reach back or reach to either side and bring somebody body along I also loved your idea about the fact that success may not look like what you think it is um and to acknowledge that you know perhaps you start off here and then you end up someplace else it's totally different so maybe be open to a lot of different things don't box yourself into one area but really be open because you never know what is going to be the perfect fit for you and then maybe in a couple of years later that's not the perfect fit maybe you go on to something else but uh but I definitely think think that working together is what represents the best of women in management and in The Newsroom and uh that's something we should all work on absolutely and collaborating with you all today has just been a joy for me and I've learned so much and I'm GNA need a book from all three of you because I'm sitting here taking notes while I'm in the panel because it was such a great discussion so thank you Cheryl fa baisha Berg Melanie Lawson we really appreciate you being a part of this panel celebrating women's history month and to everyone who is here thank you all for your support for your questions we hope you take this inspiring message all the advice and take it out into the world and do great things so hey we'll have you on the panel in a few years everybody have a great day thank you goodbye you [Music] everyone