Hello everyone! Today I am excited to bring to you an interview that I was blessed to conduct with the amazing Briana Conner. She is a decorated news anchor and reporter that has had an amazing career trajectory. As a result of this, she has lots of great advice and inspiring stories. I highly recommend that you give this a read and take the time to be inspired by it. Without further ado, here is the interview!
*The Interview Below Was Conducted Via Podcast; The Words Below Are A Manual Transcription*
Can You Tell Us A Bit About Yourself?
Sure! I am currently a news anchor and reporter with ABC13. I anchor our three o’clock newscast, and I report for our 10:00 o’clock newscast. I’ve been in that role for about a year. Before that I was in North Carolina doing the same thing for about six years, and before that I was in Paducah, Kentucky and I actually started my career in South Texas in Victoria. I’m from the Houston area, so it means the world to me to be back living and working in this town. And I am so thrilled to, as mentioned, be able to have this conversation.
Who Inspires You And Why?
That’s really funny to think about. I was actually working on a back to school story a couple of days ago and got an opportunity to go back to my high school and they asked if I had ever won any superlatives through Hightower high school back in the early 2000s. I was actually voted most likely to be a millionaire. I’m far from that, but the reason why is interesting. As a kid, I was telling everyone who would listen I was going to be the next Oprah Winfrey. Oprah has had an incredible career, she has her own network. She has done so much to advance Journalism. She made the mold of what a successful talk show is. And so I aspired to be like her and have the type of influence that she had at that time, the, you know, late 90s/early 2000s. I was definitely that kid that would rush home and put on the TV at 4:00pm so I could catch the Oprah Winfrey Show. She was really a strong influence on me when I was an adult and also my mom. My mom was a television news journalist in the 70s and I was never able to watch any of her work. But I grew up knowing that my mom and I were so similar that I thought anything that she did would be a good match for me as well. It was really neat to grow up and see how her talents made room for her in her career and how she explored her industry and so, I try to copycat some of those things in my life.
You’ve Had An Amazing Career Trajectory. Can You Tell Us Some Of The Most Memorable or Impactful Moments?
My first big story that I always end up talking about is when I was in my first market, it was a small market, it was in Victoria, Texas. There was a lot of good that happened in that town. I remember one of the most impactful stories I ever got to cover was for a veteran who returned home from either Iraq or Afghanistan. He had a wife and two little girls and they were just having a hard time. There was a little furniture store in town, it wasn’t a chain, it was a mom and pop owned store. The store decided to collaborate with myself and the man’s family and arranged to have the family away on a little vacation for a few days. I was able to document the process of people going on a completely redoing his home to fit the needs for him and give each one of his girls their own bedroom and beds complete with nice furniture. When they came back to town I was able to be there and catch the surprise on his face and the gratitude they had for what the community and the furniture store had done for them. It was one of the best moments that I have ever been able to be apart of. It felt so good to be able to cover that story and tell that story. Whenever journalism gets really hard, and I have to tell stories that don’t have that hope element I think of what I was able to cover in Victoria. It really helps me remember that there are a lot of good things that happen in the world despite the crime and the terror and the war and the things that we typically have to talk about. So that is super memorable for me.
I’ve also been able to cover a few big events like floods and hurricanes. Of course, I wasn’t here for Hurricane Harvey, but I covered Hurricane Florence along the North Carolina coast. It was one that acts that happened just a few years ago and we actually got stranded. In a part of North Carolina that was cut off from the rest of the state by the flood because it was so intense. So that was a lot hard work to cover that. We got cut off on the coast from the entire rest of the state. And so that was a big challenge because they literally had to have the Air Force start flying in food and supplies so that we could continue our work and other people living there could continue to eat and be fed. That is an experience I’ll never forget. I spent some time in South Carolina covering the Mother Emmanuel church shooting and then after that the funeral service for the Reverend Clemente who was killed, and then after that the lowering of the confederate flag over the South Caroline state house, that was an event that I’ll never forget. Since then I have covered two more mass shootings in my career. Lots of big events that felt very big at the time and that I still reflect on as time goes on to pull meaning from them because many of those things are still extremely relevant even now so I’ve had quite a few milestone stories. It is definitely not a career for the faint of heart. It’s one where first responders including journalists run towards the scene of danger to keep the public informed.
How Did Your Career Begin? How Did You Make Your Dream A Reality?
So when I went to the University of Texas in Austin. I knew I wanted to study journalism, but I wasn’t actually accepted into the journalism school. I went in as a freshman and was defaulted into the liberal arts school, so after about a year on campus I had to apply for an internal transfer to get to the communications school. From that point I had to start taking fundamental journalism classes, it was called J101. As I started getting a feeling for what that coursework was like, I was able to apply, maybe as a junior, for what was called my upper division track. That’s when I was able to select “Broadcast” out of a few different options like newspaper, magazine, television broadcast, and radio. That’s when I started doing foundation basic work that could help me understand and learn what the profession was about. They gave us cameras and tripods and we had to pitch stories and put on a newscast as a class, I think it was either a weekly or bi-weekly newscast that I worked on during my senior year. Anyone interested in this career should definitely do an internship with a news station during their junior or senior year. I ended up getting one with a woman that had a private broadcasting company that she was trying to get off of the ground with a focus on politics in Austin at the time.
I never got to do an internship with ABC or CBS, but that would have been very helpful for my career, many of my friends did. After the experience that I had with the small business owner/broadcast blog maker and in school, I graduated with what we call a “demo reel”. A demo reel, at that time, was a dvd of our work put together. I remember making copies of that and making copies of my resume and my headshot and going to like kinkos and putting everything in mailers and sending them out to news stations and news directors all across the country that had openings. I think that the only place I got a call back from was Victoria, Texas. So I went down there, fortunately it was only a few hours south of Houston. After interviewing with the director, I was able to start my first position as a sports reporter and anchor. I worked down the crossroads for about a year and a half doing that. I also tried news, and I really enjoyed that area of television broadcasting and then really just continued in news with some sports here and there. I was able to cover the Super Bowl with the Carolina Panthers. However, the main focus has been news reporting and anchoring since I was able to land that first job in Victoria.
Were You Ever Afraid That You Could Not Achieve Your Dream/Career Goals?
Absolutely. Many times in this industry people tell you no. Television news is still a performance based industry. It’s about how you look on air, it’s how you deliver your stories, a lot of it is still your talent behind the scenes and your doggedness to ask questions and get answers. It’s also about how you present that information. Many times people will tell you no, but all you really need is one yes. So, I knew that I always wanted to come back, live and work in Houston. That was my big goal. That was my big dream. And I got a lot of Nos before I finally got a news director to say yes. Before they said: “ I want to give you the opportunity, Briana. I want to bring you home. I want to let you live and work and the place where you always dreamed.” With the way the industry has changed, even since I got into it in 2010, I was concerned for sure about whether I fit the direction the industry was going, whether I’d be able to keep up and ultimately whether I would ever get the opportunity to do what I loved back in the city, as they say, the city that raised me. So, I am very grateful that at the end of the day I achieved my goal. It was definitely a long journey for me it took 11 years on the road working on the journey to get me back home.
I thought about leaving the industry several times. Especially with broadcast news in particular, a lot of things have to line up for you to be able to work where you want. There has to be an opening first of all, then that opening has to line up with the timing of when your contract is up. We’re contract-based workers. So if you sign for two years then at the end of those two years, there hopefully has to be a position open in a place where you want to work and then they have to have a need for somebody like you. Someone who does what you do, somebody who looks like you do. So for all of that to line up and for me to be ready took over a decade. I wanted to give up many times, but I am so grateful that I did not.
Your Career Is Very Public Facing. How Do You Maintain A Good Work-Life Balance And Do You Have Any Tips?
You know, that is probably an area where I still really struggle. I keep my cell phone on me at all times because you never know when breaking news is going to happen, and I happen to be a breaking news lever. I dedicate a lot of my time to my career. I have worked really hard for it and sacrificed a lot for it. This is an area where I know I can use some work and fine-tuning in. Now I want to have more of a balance so that I can spend some time with my family and spend time with friends that I’ve had since high school and still do those career aspirations that I still have. So that is definitely a delicate dance and I’m kind of learning as I go. My number one thing up until this point has been to always say yes. Saying yes has afforded me a lot of opportunities to cover some really cool, interesting stories. My news directors would always come to me because they knew that I was always going to say yes. And at the time, early in my career, it wasn’t a problem. I didn’t have a family, I didn’t really have other obligations so it was fine for me to always say yes. It helped me to get the experience and the wraps and the chops that I needed to work in a market like Houston. But now that I’m here, I’m learning to say no sometimes. It’s still not often, but I am learning that sometimes I have to put other things first. My career comes first certainly often, but now it’s not always. I have had to learn when it’s important to say no. That’s the advice that I would give; take stock of your own life, think about what’s important to you, and think about what you want and what it will take to get what you want. After you’ve done that, figure out when it’s appropriate for you to say no sometimes.
Who Would You Recommend Your Career To? What Kind Of Person/Kind Of Interests?
I recommend this career to anybody who is naturally curious, to anyone who believes in the American ideal of democracy, because we know that journalism is the fourth estate. None of this works without an informed electorate and an informed public. So, anyone who believes in what this country stands for and that it can still work is a good candidate. It’s also good for anyone that’s willing to work hard and sacrifice. I think the benefit truly is being able to come home on a daily basis and be assured that what you do every day and how you are contributing to society means something and that you have the potential every day to make a difference.
What Are Some Challenges That You Have Experienced In Your Career?
I think that being a young woman, and of course being a young woman of color, there is definitely a challenge in leaving home and moving to these small American towns to work without knowing anyone or having necessarily a support system there. Truly, going out on your own to a new and foreign place and all that you have is your job. So, that definitely presents challenges that I have had to face and overcome. You have to work to find a community wherever you are if it is someplace far from home. So, I had to brush up on those friend-making skills in every new market that I worked in where I didn’t know anyone or even know necessarily if it was safe for me there at first. So that was one of the more difficult things involved in this career that I can think of off the top of my head.
Has Anyone Ever Discouraged You From Pursuing Your Career? How Did You Find The Motivation To Continue?
I wouldn’t say discouraged, but I definitely had friends, mentors, people familiar with business and in the business who said: “Is this what you really want to do?” It’s not that they were trying to be negative, it was that they wanted to tell me the truth of what this career field requires. Allowing me to do some really deep thinking and make my own decisions. One thing that I haven’t mentioned is that this is not a career where you’re able to make a decent living at first. Things have gotten a little better but no one does this to get rich. That’s a challenge in and of itself and a lot of people once you speak with them will say: “You can do a lot of other things, you have a lot of skills, and you can do a lot of things that don’t involve working nights, weekends, and holidays for very little pay.” Most of the time when I’ve considered leaving the industry, it has been along those terms. Thinking: “What else can I do that will provide me a better life?” I like to say that journalism/broadcast news is kind of like a virus and I haven’t been able to shut it down yet. (laughs) It’s still in me. It’s like an infection, I can’t shake it! If you’re someone that wants to be on television and that’s the only reason that you get into broadcast news, you won’t last very long, you’ll find out that there are not a lot of benefits to just being on TV.
What Advice Would You Give To Girls And Women That Want to Achieve Their Goals, But Are Afraid Of Failure?
Failure is not necessarily a bad thing! I think we have to try to eliminate the negative connotation from the word for a second to look at every mistake and every backtrack as an opportunity to learn. I don’t like being wrong; I don’t like failure, but I think that if we give ourselves a second to digest what has happened and find out how to learn from it, there is a lot of power in that. I have made some mistakes in my career, but I am one that I will not make the same mistake twice. You take that failure, you learn from it, and you don’t do it again.
I Think We Have To Try To Eliminate The Negative Connotation From The Word [Failure] To Look At Every Mistake And Every Backtrack As An Opportunity To Learn.
Briana Conner
What Advice Would You Give To Those That Are Entering College For The First Time?
This is what my mom told me when I got ready to go to school. It served her well when she was in college, and it served me well when I was in school. It is: “work hard and play hard.” That’s the balance. I had an amazing time in Austin; I had a great time while I was in school, but I always made sure that I showed up to class the next day. I did not miss a party and I did not miss class. That advice and attitude really carried me through college and helped me to have an incredible experience and to graduate with honors. I think that if you can show up to the party on Thursday night, you can show up to your 8:00 AM class on Friday morning.
Thank You for taking the time to read or listen to this interview. I hope that you found it as impactful as I did! Briana Conner is a woman with a mission making her goals and dreams a reality. Don’t be afraid to join her and start working towards your goals too. Like she said, it’s a journey. Hers took time and yours may too, but don’t lose hope! The future is yours. Share this interview with a friend today that might like it using the links below. Until next time, as always…
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