The Focus on Women Committee’s (FOWC) virtual meeting on March 25, was prefaced by the panel discussion, Spotlight on Women in Local News: Leaders in Stations’ Control Rooms and Studios.

During a conversation moderated by Stage Manager/FOWC AD/SM/PA Category Representative Erika Wortham, Directors Sherece Brown from NBC’s affiliate WRC in Washington, DC, Rebecca Ledewitz from New York City’s WNJU and Emily Murphy from WCVB in Boston, MA, and Stage Manager Meryl Jaffe from WABC in New York spoke about how, they handle working in an environment that as Wortham described it, “local news runs on precision, timing, quick decision making, and occasionally a bit of controlled chaos when things don’t go as planned.”

Murphy revealed, “I’m a control freak, and I think every Director is a little bit of a control freak. Once I got a taste of production life, I just thought it was so cool to be able to have control over what it looks like, the shots, the lighting, and I wanted to just climb the ladder to go to the top. I was secretly learning how to be a Director on my days off. One day, I caught my lucky break. The Director didn’t show up for his shift and I had been learning how switch and code and do all of the things. The producer called me and said, ‘Do we put in a different show, or can you do it?’ And I said, ‘I can do it. Let me do it,’ and stepped in.”

Sharing what makes directing local news unique, Ledewitz stated, “There’s definitely a bit of mind reading that goes on or [reading] very subtle bodily facial cues with your talent as well. Knowing if they’re not ready for something, or they acknowledge you, but you can tell in their face they weren’t acknowledging you, or the weather person’s trying to forecast, and you hear them clicking, but they look slightly confused in their face, so you want to try and move on. It’s just really knowing your coworkers really well to help everything when there are those things that we’re all trying to cover go that much more smoothly, because you have that much familiarity with your team.”

Brown explained how local news differs from network. “For local news, it’s considered a factory. You’re constantly on air. For a network, a Director might have a half-hour show, an hour show, or two-hour show and that’s it. For local news, you have three or four shows for the day, so you have no choice but to be always on. I thought I would have time to perfect my craft before it hits air, but you don’t have that luxury to look at your shots beforehand. You have to know your coding, and it’s a lot of flying by the seat of your pants.”

Recalling the transition from entertainment television to news television Jaffe said, “It was like learning a new language. Live TV is very different than what I had been doing, and the other skills as far as working with talent, working with different directing teams, I think that helped me make the transition to live TV. I feel very fortunate. We do laugh a lot, and it’s that kind of camaraderie, and I don’t know if closeness is the right word, but I had that in my soap family, and I found it again at WABC.”

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:

About the Committee:

Originally a sub-committee of the Eastern Directors Council, in 2020 the Focus on Women Committee (FOWC) was designated an official and permanent committee of the DGA National Board for women members residing in the Eastern Region. The Committee would like to remind members that while their events are designed with a special focus on women Directors, all DGA members are welcome to attend.

• For more about the FOWC and to see coverage of other events, click here to visit the Committee's webpage.