Today we’d like to introduce you to Danielle Radin.
Danielle, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Hermosa Beach, a gorgeous beachy community in Los Angeles County. I spent five years in the Bay Area, first at school at U.C. Berkeley, then getting a Master’s degree at Stanford University. It was shortly after grad school that I realized I wanted to be a TV journalist. At the time, television seemed to be the only medium that people were still regularly consuming to get their news. I’ve been fortunate that I have been able to stay in California my entire career — Redding, California came through as my first full-time TV reporting gig. I was elated!
The benefit of living in a small town is everyone watches the local evening news. The residents there feel like they know you. After a while, I would go to interview people for a story and they would say, ‘Oh hey Danielle, come on in, I’ll talk to you,” even though I had never met them before. With this mentality, people there were big on following their favorite reporters on social media. I started to see the power of relaying information through those platforms for the first time. I didn’t have to wait for my story to air in the 6 pm newscast, I could tell people what they needed to know sooner, and in a more personal way.
Then a few major stories happened: All the major presidential candidates came to town, I got exclusive interviews with family members after music icon Merle Haggard passed away in Redding, there were some devastating wildfires, and talks of marijuana becoming legal in California were becoming a reality. Covering these topics and others made my social platforms skyrocket. I started to think about social media strategy more than before: Why are people interested in this type of content but not that type? Why do people on this platform care about this one topic? It became an interesting challenge.
My station had a struggling sister station in Eureka, California that was brand new. I had a unique opportunity to go over there and try to build it up. I thought I’m never going to have the chance to get into a news station from the ground floor again, I’d better go! I hopped over there for a while as a senior reporter and a digital strategist. The news director and I were able to flip that station around and make it shine. It’s now the #1 station in the market on TV, mobile, digital, everything! After that, it was time to get back to a big city.
When NBC San Diego had a job opening for a digital correspondent, a brand new role that no other NBC station had ever had before, I knew I would be perfect for it. I spent two very fun years reporting with new technologies no one else was using yet — Snapchat spectacles, drones, virtual and augmented reality, 3D cameras, and other devices. I would put my field reports on Instagram stories, which made us jump higher in engagement than markets with millions of more viewers than us. I knew that the way people were consuming news was changing. I wasn’t sure what it would look like in a few years, but I wanted to stay ahead of the digital wave.
While that job was great, I missed TV reporting and wanted to try my hand at anchoring. Enter Fox 5, San Diego! In my current role, I’m able to report on the morning show three days a week, and on the weekends, I have this amazing opportunity to anchor my digital news show. I produce the newscast, write it, and present it live. It’s the only interactive show in the county. Viewers can ask me questions live in the moment and I can answer them right there. It is a type of news consumption that I never could have fathomed back when I was first starting, which is a testament to how quickly journalism is changing.
That’s why it’s a passion of mine now to try to figure out how younger generations want to consume news. For example, I put my TV broadcast on TikTok to try to spark the interest of Generation Z. I like to ponder how the next generation below that, Generation Alpha, will want their news. What about Generation Beta? (Which I’m assuming comes after Alpha? But they aren’t born yet, so who knows).
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Smooth roads towards big goals are like unicorns: probably non-existent. It took me over a year to get my first on-air job. I applied to more than 200 stations, met with news directors in person, continuously changed my demo reel (a video you submit to show what you look and sound like in the field). During that time, I was supporting myself by working at a cloud communication technology company doing VoIP during the week and keeping up my skills in broadcast as a news writer for KRON 4 in San Francisco on the weekends. It was on channel 4 that I started to talk to TV reporters, tell them my goals, and ask for their help making a better demo reel. I would wake up at 3 a.m. to meet with a reporter on the morning shift on the off chance there would be time to record a few shots of me out in the field. Then I would go to my tech job! It was tiring, but it started to work out in my job hunt.
News stations around the country were starting to call me back for once! Places like Wausau, Wisconsin, Watertown, New York, and Pocatello, Idaho, wanted to hire me. I was willing to go anywhere to make this dream happen. Luckily, Redding worked out, but living there was a challenge in itself.
It was my first time living in a small town, which was an adjustment. I had a lot to learn: pitching story ideas in a place I had never lived before, using the camera, interviewing people in the field, editing the footage, scriptwriting, presenting on-air. The pay was laughable, especially coming from the Bay Area tech bubble. I was working constantly, and broke! I never had the time or money to eat. During my shift, I would order the two tacos for a dollar deal at Jack in the Box because it was quick and cheap. I lost 15 pounds from this! (There IS such thing as a taco diet!) I was put into dangerous situations in Redding. For example, I got so close to the flames of a wildfire my shoes melted a little bit. I remember one time, in particular, I was told to go door-knocking and talk to people living in a rural neighborhood.
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