Natural Disaster

by Ginger Zee

  The next morning, I woke up to a missed call from WEYI. Mark had called in sick and they needed me to take his place. It was only my second day, and I was going to fill in for the chief meteorologist for the five, six, and eleven P.M. broadcasts. In flip-flops.

  I walked timidly into the studio, and there she was. Erin Looby was sitting at the anchor desk getting ready to do the five P.M. news. She was a gorgeous blonde and was probably wearing a blazer with some fancy label I didn’t even know existed. She had perfect hair, perfect makeup, the perfect outfit, and perfect shoes. She sat at the desk with the best posture I had ever seen. She delivered the news in a confident yet pleasant tone, never stumbling on her words. She had been Miss Michigan. You could tell. She turned toward me before that first show started, and not the way most of us turn, but the way a beauty queen’s hand turns in a graceful wave. Her entire body turned like that. She gave me a warm smile and said, “Welcome.”

  Pan to me in my nylon navy suit with the interchangeable collar (pink, since it was my favorite color, of course), far-from-perfect makeup, disheveled hair, and flip-flops. I delivered my first real forecast on a real television station in plastic sandals. Fortunately, the camera stayed mid-calf and above, but still.

  The contrast between Erin and me has always been a powerful metaphor for who I am. I have had to learn to love the girl who is just a little off and wears flip-flops. I will never be all together like Erin or any of the other polished women I have worked with in my career. I just need to accept the disastrous part of me, embrace it, find pride in it, and do my best. I am finally getting to that point in my life. And the part of me from the mid-calf up that did the weather that night actually did pretty well for her first live broadcast ever. And it just kept getting better from there. Or so I thought.

  Mark returned two nights later, refreshed and grateful. He congratulated me and I felt tremendous. So far, so good. The following week I would start reporting. I sat in the morning editorial meeting, where the staff and management decided what we would cover for the day, and they said, “Ginger, you are going to go to the Buick Open golf tournament and do a live VOSOT for the five P.M. news.”

  Great! I gathered my things, met the photographer I would be working with, and then realized there was one big issue: I had no idea what a VOSOT was. I later learned it stands for “voice-over/sound on tape.” Basically, it’s the part of the newscast where you see the anchor or a reporter talk on-camera, then talk over video, then stop talking while a complementary sound bite from a person related to the story rolls. But I didn’t know any of this at the time, because I hadn’t studied television in college, only meteorology. I felt so stupid. I didn’t want anyone to catch me Googling on my computer, so I figured I would just go and see what happened. Goodness, what I would have done for a smartphone back then.

  I talked to the photographer who was driving us to the golf tournament to see if I could glean what I’d be doing without directly asking.

  “So, how do you guys usually get your VOSOTs at the Buick Open?” I asked.

  I hoped the mysterious term fit in my sentence and didn’t sound too ignorant. He explained that he had done the Buick Open for years and thought we should check in with the “weather center” on the grounds and make that part of my hit, because I was a meteorologist and it was going to be very rainy the next two days, which would undoubtedly affect play. Then he told me, “You can have one of them be your SOT.”

  Outstanding, I thought. A person must be the SOT! Now I just need the VO. Whatever that is.

  I jumped out of the news van and ran up to the first person I saw. He was tall, handsome, built, and wearing a black Nike hat. I asked him if he knew where the weather trailer was. He seemed confused and said he didn’t know where it was, but wished me a good day. I saw the entrance to the press tent and darted in that direction. By the time my photographer caught up with me, I told him I’d found the directions to the trailer we needed for our SOT.

  “That’s great, but what did Tiger Woods want?” he asked.

  “Who?” I answered.

  “Tiger Woods. The guy you were just talking to. One of the greatest golfers today. The guy who won this tournament last year,” he said, somewhat incredulously.

  Oh. That guy was named Tiger Woods? Not only didn’t I care, but I didn’t have any idea who Tiger Woods was. In case you’re taking notes, being totally unaware of your surroundings and extremely focused on one thing is a calling card for a natural disaster. I like to think Tiger Woods may have found it refreshing that I ignored him. Who knows?

  By the time we were done shooting our SOT with the weather folks, my photographer told me he wanted to shoot some VO before we headed back to the station. I was relieved he’d be taking care of the VO. Maybe I was in the clear.

  We hopped back in the van. I felt pretty tickled with my success.

  It was already three P.M., and we drove back to the station to edit my VOSOT. We were going to be live at five P.M. As he closed the clunky news-van door, he said, “Please write the VO and I will meet you to edit soon.” Uh-oh.

  As soon as the door shut, I started sweating bullets. Start writing the VO? What did this mean? I pulled out the reporters’ notepad that the office manager had sent me out with earlier and started jotting down notes about what I knew about the forecast and what I had learned from the officials at the tournament.

  By the time I found my photographer, it was 4:40, and the newscast was less than thirty minutes away. The photographer grabbed my pad of paper and started editing. I am sure he was less than impressed with my bullet points.

  But in that nervous moment I learned firsthand that a VO is a voice-over. I watched him match my notes to the video he thought was appropriate.

  Eureka! I did it! I had figured it out. I would recite my notes while that video he was cutting played. The SOT would roll separately. It was all making sense.

  I went live, and as soon as I was through I ran back to watch the playback. After work I called my mom, thrilled with my successful sleuthing and broadcast. She was so proud of me. I thought to myself, This is what Barbara Walters must feel like. I love this.

  The next day at the editorial meeting I felt more than ready for my next assignment, because now that I knew what a VOSOT was and had done my first live hit, I was essentially a news expert. But just as I was about to step into the morning meeting, giddy with false confidence, Valerie blocked the door and told me she needed to see me in her office. No matter where you are in life, going to your boss’s office will always feel like going to the principal’s office, and it’s almost never good.

  We entered the office, rain pouring on that cornfield outside; my eyes then quickly fixed on another person, an overwhelming woman in the room. Valerie introduced me to Sheree, her assistant news director. As she stood to shake my hand, Sheree towered above me like a giant redwood tree. She was stoic, intimidating, and oddly soft-spoken. I would later find out that she was Valerie’s bad cop. Later, meaning about one minute later, when Valerie left us together in her office so Sheree could explain that so far, they didn’t love my work, and Valerie was disappointed in her latest hire. She was going to take me off the air until they could work with me to get me up to their standards. I was floored. Huh?! I thought I had had a great start. Others had complimented me! I felt just as good as I had doing my broadcasts in Merrillville during college. Again, natural disasters tend to miss things about their surroundings. This was even worse than missing Tiger Woods.

  After getting my first real critique, my head was spinning. I felt light-headed. My ears went numb; Sheree shook my shoulder, and it jolted me back to reality. She said, “Let’s go to the edit bay and go over your tapes.”

  In the tiny dark room with two tape decks and two monitors, Sheree popped in a large Betamax tape air check that held my broadcasts from the week before and proceeded to pick me apart second by second. The old tape-to-tape edit system had the shuttle button, and Sheree hit that thing to pause my ta
pe—every. Other. Second. On everything from my hair, to my makeup, to my clothing, to the way I said “the thumb of Michigan” instead of naming the cities (like Lapeer) in the thumb. It took what felt like three hours to go over my thirty-minute compilation tape, and it was excruciating. Sheree’s delivery wasn’t exactly smooth or gentle. She made me feel incompetent, ugly, and untalented. Welcome to television. In Sheree’s defense, this was the first time I had ever received criticism. If the same were delivered to me today, I would not have reacted as dramatically. I exited that edit bay with the first chink in my armor. Sheree’s barbs had been harsh, but I had survived. Barely.

  My stomach was in knots, and I forced myself to eat Ritz crackers from the vending machine for lunch before heading back to Valerie’s office. She set me to work on her floor with a filing project. That’s right, I was not given a chair. It was the cherry on top of the humiliation cake I’d already been eating. I cried the whole way home, wondering if this is what my college Calculus 3 classes had earned me. The next few days were just as brutal, but I sucked it up and took those ladies’ harsh criticism. This was the first time I had to take a step back and find strength in myself. I practiced in front of the green screen whenever I could. I would not let them keep me off the air because they didn’t believe I was good enough. After all, I was going to be on The Today Show in ten years, and neither Sheree nor Valerie was going to get in my way. Ever since I had returned from that internship in Birmingham, I made my password to my Hotmail account my goal in life: todayshow10.

  I wonder what Sheree and Valerie would have thought of my lofty goal back then. They probably would have laughed hysterically. I wasn’t good enough for Clio, Michigan. But I’d get better. A lot better. Maybe they knew that too and it was their way of pushing me. Who knows?

  I kept working my butt off at that job and got good enough for Sheree and Valerie to allow me back on TV. Our relationship was strained, but I soon learned I was not the only one they attacked. They went after almost everyone. Even Erin Looby. Which is crazy. Because she was perfect.

  Years later, when I got the job at ABC, Erin Looby sent me a delightful congratulatory message. She has always been an incredible supporter and a good friend. She is no longer in the business and is now a mother of four boys, and I am certain she is making the world a better place. She takes the time to write kind notes, telling me when she loves a segment I am doing. She is the real deal. And I guarantee wherever she is right now, her hair still looks perfect.

  Through all the drama of those first few weeks, I eventually moved into the run-down house I had purchased, though it needed to be gutted. At least Otis got to join me. Every evening when I arrived home from another battle at work, Otis was my sanctuary. When I would take a good verbal beating from one of the executives, feeding Otis, grooming him, and walking him provided moments of calm within the storm.

  One night I let Otis out as soon as I got home at eleven P.M. on a Saturday. He darted, and I heard him bark. Otis never barked. I would joke that he was a mute. So if he was audibly alerting me to something, I knew it had to be very good or very bad. And as soon as I stepped outside and saw his happy face barreling toward me, before he even got to the door, I could smell it. Otis had been skunked. The smell was so pungent. I didn’t want him to come inside, so I ran back in the house, leaving Otis stinking on the front porch, and Googled how to get the skunk smell out of your dog. I read peanut butter, ketchup, tomato paste…and I proceeded to empty out my condiments on my dog’s thick black fur. An hour later I washed and dried him, hoping for a miracle, but he still smelled so bad.

  I let him in and made him sleep on an old pile of towels instead of my bed. The next day I received another e-mail beating me up for my far-from-perfect Saturday broadcasts, but it didn’t matter quite as much. I was exhausted from staying up playing doggy dry cleaner and wasn’t sure what to do. But what happened next marked a real career fulcrum. On my five P.M. show on a Sunday, I was told moments before I went on the air that I would have extra time to fill. You’ll remember, we don’t have a script in weather, so we can really do what we please, choose our pace, and tell a story. And all of a sudden, right after the current temperatures, it happened. I just burst out with the story about Otis. I talked about the skunk, the peanut butter, and my epic fail as a dog mom. I walked off after my segment was complete feeling like I had let a big weight off my shoulders, but so frightened of my bosses. I had never shared anything personal; I had always done exactly what I was supposed to do. As soon as I got back to the weather desk, the voice-mail light was flashing. And the phone was ringing. I answered. An older gentleman on the other end spoke up:

  “Hey, you the lady who has the dog that got skunked? Ha! Well, listen to me. I’m a farmer and I’ve done this more than a few times,” he said.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Get rid of all the food stuff and go and buy an industrial-size women’s douche. That’ll take care of that skunk stench. I promise,” the farmer said. “Oh, by the way, I enjoyed your weather report tonight,” he added.

  I was speechless. I had been beaten down so much that any compliment was as startling as hearing Otis bark. But that was far from the last call I fielded that night. Call after call, e-mails and voice mails, all from people wanting to help. It was a career breakthrough. This was the first time I realized I am not just a talking head and that I need to allow people into my life a bit. They feel welcome; they connect; they get to share in the simple pleasures or trials in my life, like my dog getting sprayed by a skunk. That Monday morning Valerie called me into her office. I was terrified and thinking, Well, even though people liked it, she hates me, so she will probably hate it. She told me, however, it was the best show I had had yet. So relaxed, confident, transparent, and passionate. This is how I should do the weather.

  I like to think that Otis was also a bit of a natural disaster, like me. And together, we created a beautiful rainbow.

  I will always will be a natural disaster. My first big grown-up job was where I first began to recognize that, although it would be years before I fully accepted it. Nowadays, I believe that you can be a disaster and still be quite beautiful. You just have to find the core of that storm—whether it’s being on television in your flip-flops, accepting criticism, or rejoicing in the humor of standing at the store with a giant two-liter douche—and find pride in it. That’s where the happiness lies waiting for you.

  My mother is one of the craziest but most passionate and loving women I know. She has a tendency to walk around this world not only being the best mom, supporting her four kids at every turn, but also being able to start an entire public relations firm focused on promoting her children. Even though I have gotten to the pinnacle of network television and was on Dancing with the Stars, she will still tell everyone about my brother and his band, The Outer Vibe, well before she mentions me. They do totally rock, but DWTS, Mom!

  She is also a neonatal nurse practitioner who takes care of those tiny babies in the NICU, saving their lives and becoming super close with their parents while the little guys and gals heal and grow over weeks or even months. In 2004, one of those couples happened to be Patti McGettigan and her husband, Bill. Patti was the news director at WOOD TV, the dominant NBC affiliate in our hometown, the station I grew up watching. I was working in Flint, well, Clio, at the time, and my mom proceeded to tell Patti about me. Every day. Patti later admitted she and Bill called my mom “Chatty Dawn,” because the woman can talk.

  And I am grateful she is so vocal, because a year later when my résumé reel ended up in a pile on Patti’s desk, she popped it in, liked it, and then realized this young meteorologist from Flint was Chatty Dawn’s daughter. She had also heard of me from my boss at the country club I worked at growing up, Cindi Poll—one of my biggest fans in life and a mentor to this day—that I was “one to watch.” That combined endorsement made for a great first interview when I arrived at WOOD TV. We had a good laugh, and I felt immediately comfortable.
I still had a few months to wrap up my contract at WEYI, but as soon as I could, I sold my house, packed up, and drove back across the state to where it all began.

  I was Patti’s find, her discovery. I didn’t mind that at all, because I knew it meant she had a stake in my success at the station. To say she was the Anna Wintour of Midwest television bosses is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but her directness and complete disinterest in being the kind of advisor who might take you under her wing and show you the ropes was a little intimidating. Still, I liked her a lot, even if I was a little afraid of her. As far as my idols went, there was Brian Sterling, one of the anchors, whom I’d had a crush on since high school, and Rick Albin, the political reporter, who I am pretty sure never liked me. I have a vivid image of that disdain, which manifested in the rapid tapping of his coffee cup every time I pitched an idea in a meeting. Craig James and Bill Steffen were the chief meteorologists, whom I endlessly watched at Dickhead’s cottage.

  I should have been nervous about starting at WOOD TV, but the truth is I’d been a horse at the gate ready to get going with my career and be the overnight sensation of the on-camera science world since I’d gotten back from that internship with James Spann in Alabama. It only took about one day to wake up from that dream at WOOD TV and realize I was unnecessary. There were five meteorologists at this small station already, and just before I arrived, the one who was supposed to retire suddenly changed his mind. I was, in a word, redundant. But I didn’t care. I was starting my career, and that’s all that mattered to me.