The Light Within Me

by Ainsley Earhardt

  Reporting in my hometown forced me to open my eyes to its problems and needs. I grew up in a nice home, with heat and only minor problems compared to many people in my city. I was covering stories in drug-infested neighborhoods and our homeless shelters. For the first time, I realized the world was a lot bigger and I was no longer seeing life in “Ainsley’s world.” I realized how grateful I needed to be. I was growing up and growing as a journalist.

  Those first couple of years I learned a lot about writing, editing, and the nuts and bolts of broadcast journalism. The profession is stressful, the hours are crazy, there are so many demands and so much pressure, and the starting pay is not great. None of that mattered. I loved every minute of it. At the same time I stayed involved in my church, did a lot of Bible studies, and even led a Bible study for high school girls. Teaching them made me feel like I had a purpose and was making a difference. I also learned so much about myself and the Lord. I just wanted to get closer and closer to Him while also developing the talents He had given me.

  6

  Trying to Find My Balance

  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

  —1 PETER 5:6–7

  I LOVED GROWING up in the South and will forever be grateful for the values and culture instilled in me. But as I have said, I knew God had something bigger planned for me. I know writing this makes me sound like I never grew beyond that five-year-old watching the Oscars and dreaming of becoming a famous Hollywood actress. Believe me, I’ve wrestled with that myself. After I became born again and began to seek God’s will for my life, the sense that God had a bigger plan for me only grew stronger. Rather than make my head swell, I felt a huge load of responsibility. If God wanted to put me in a larger place with bigger responsibilities, I knew I had to be ready, both professionally and spiritually. I had to work hard to develop the talents He’d given me and to become the best I could possibly be as a journalist. At the same time I wanted to continue growing closer to Him, learning His word, the Bible, and becoming mature as a Christian. Learning how to balance the spiritual and the professional along with my social life and my love life and all the other parts of my life was a lot harder than I imagined.

  The first couple of years I worked at WLTX I was a sponge, soaking up everything I could learn. During that time I covered everything from shootings to politics to hurricanes and natural disasters—whatever made news that day. I considered myself a serious reporter. Larry, my boss, also had me fill in as an anchor on the weekends, and I was eager for that experience as well.

  But from the day I accepted my job I never planned on staying at WLTX forever. As I’ve said, ultimately, I hoped to land a job in a top-ten market, or move up to the national level, and I made no secret of that fact. When I dated someone, in the beginning I told him that if he wanted to be serious with me and move forward with the relationship, he needed to know I wasn’t going to be in Columbia forever.

  The boyfriend who drove me around to the different job interviews was Kevin. We ended up dating for five years off and on. We were both busy, trying to navigate our own paths, and were not sure if God wanted us to get married. We broke up several times and in between friends would set me up with other people. After a few dates, I would let them know I was not staying in Columbia because I knew God was pulling me in a different direction. I had the desire to try to get to the top and whoever I was going to end up with had to be okay with that. As expected, most guys were not. They wanted to stay in South Carolina and raise a family. So most relationships wouldn’t last long because neither one of us shared the same goals. But I believed in being extremely honest and never played games.

  TWO YEARS AFTER I started as a reporter, Larry Audas called me into his office and said, “I want you to be the new morning anchor.”

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Yes, you. I want to pair you with Curtis Wilson. The two of you will make a great team.” I did not know Curtis personally, but I was familiar with who he was. He had one of the most popular drive-time radio shows in Columbia. I’d listened to him. He was very entertaining, engaging, and funny.

  “Larry, I look up to you and will do anything you ask of me, but I don’t think I will be successful in that position. I am not funny and you need someone funny to fill that spot,” I said. Morning anchors report the news but they also have to be entertaining. That’s just not me. At least I didn’t think it was me.

  “Ainsley, trust me. I think you’d be really good at this,” Larry said.

  “I’m a reporter,” I countered. “I do serious news. Besides, I stay up late. I like working the shift I do now. It fits me. Believe me. I am not a morning person. You do not want me on-camera at five A.M.”

  Larry just looked at me.

  Long ago my father taught me that when you have a job, you do whatever work the boss throws your way. You don’t say no to an assignment. “All right. If you want me to do this then I’ll do it,” I said.

  “Good choice,” Larry said. He later introduced me to Curtis. When Larry wasn’t around I told Curtis all of my hesitations about taking the morning anchor position. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thrilled about working with him, I told him. I didn’t know him, but from what I had heard on the radio I thought he was a great choice for the morning show. Me, that was another question entirely.

  I should never have questioned Larry’s judgment. Right from the start Curtis and I hit it off. The two of us on-camera just clicked. He quickly became one of my closest friends, and we still stay in touch. I love him like a brother. We had not worked together very long when Curtis told me, “I’ve worked with lots of personalities on the air over the years, and I’m telling you, this is your first anchor position but what we have is just . . . it’s just very rare.” I’m so glad Curtis told me this. Since then I’ve never taken my good relationships and chemistry with my co-anchors for granted.

  Curtis brought my personality out on-camera. He taught me how to be Ainsley for all to see. I stopped pretending to be so serious all the time. In college and when I first started at WLTX I was under the impression that journalists could never be lighthearted. Curtis showed me that there is a time and a place for seriousness, but also a time and a place to have some fun. Our audience loved it. We soon became the number one morning news show in the Columbia market.

  We covered serious topics on the morning show, but we also wove in fun, fluff news. Sometimes the fun got the best of us. I remember covering a story about a pig and Curtis and I couldn’t keep our composure. A giant pig was essentially attacking a mobile home. That’s right. Someone’s giant-size pig escaped its pen and went on a rampage. A neighbor called the police and the media to report that her house was shaking because a pig was slamming its body into its walls. When a camera crew from our station arrived the pig was still at it. Curtis and I sat in the anchor chairs watching the video of the pig attack the house and it struck both of us as one of the funniest things we’d ever seen. Now, I was a serious news anchor, but I couldn’t take this seriously. Curtis leaned over and began acting like he was clearing his throat to try to cover his laughter. He’d pull it together, then read another line of the story, and start clearing his throat again. I didn’t even try to hide my laughter. About the time I got myself together I looked over at Curtis and I burst out laughing. That story helped me begin to loosen up on air and let more of myself come out.

  Curtis was always trying to teach me not to take myself so seriously. I cannot count the number of times the camera moved in close on me as I reported a story while just off-camera Curtis raised up and put his face as close as he could to mine without showing up on-screen. He’d stare at me or jab me or do whatever he could to try to get me to laugh while I read the news. I’d pay him back when we cut to commercial. All he wanted to do was pull my personality out. Curtis knew, and Larry knew, that that’s what connected us to our viewers. Yes, we needed to report the n
ews and give stories the weight each one needed, but I truly believe we shot to the top of the ratings because of our personalities. The viewers watched because they felt connected to us. Curtis understood this from his drive-time radio show. I was just starting to learn it.

  I finally cut loose completely and was just myself one morning when Curtis tried to embarrass me on-camera. Scott, our meteorologist, was doing the weather while I was not on-camera. I had a makeup bag about the size of a small cooler that I kept under the anchor desk. Since I was off-camera, I pulled out my bag and did a quick fix of my makeup. I didn’t hear a word of Scott’s weather report. After he was finished he tossed back to us and asked a question while I wasn’t listening because I was hastily putting my makeup bag away. Still I said, “Oh yeah, yeah,” like I’d been paying close attention to his every word.

  “Uh-uh. No, no, no, no. You’re not getting out of this one, Ainsley. Don’t act like you were listening to Scott’s forecast. You didn’t hear a word he said, did you?” Curtis said.

  “I did. I was listening!” I protested.

  “Then what’s the weather going to be today?” he asked.

  “Curtis! Are you trying to get me in trouble?” I said with a smile.

  Curtis then reached down and picked up my makeup bag. “This looks like a cooler. It looks like you have a six-pack of beer in here. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Ainsley’s makeup bag. Ainsley, why don’t you tell everybody what you were doing during Scott’s weather report?”

  I laughed. “Well, if you aren’t quiet I’m going to put some of this makeup on you, Curtis,” I said. “Oh, wait a minute. You’re already wearing makeup. You’re the only man in my life who wears makeup.”

  Curtis and I also made appearances all over the city. He had become deeply involved in the community through his radio program before he joined WLTX. Organizations all over the city asked him to appear and he always said yes. If a school asked him to come read to fourth graders, he said yes, and I went with him. If a nonprofit wanted him to come speak, he said yes, and I went with him. Curtis even said yes if a local kid was having a hard time and wanted Curtis to meet him at McDonald’s or Hardee’s. The man lived out his Christian talk. He was generous with his time and money and just wanted to help people.

  It didn’t take long for our schedule outside of the show to fill up. Since Curtis never said no, and he nearly always invited me to come along with him, I found we had an appearance of some sort nearly every day. I’ve always been very organized with my time. I have a physical month-to-month planner and rely on it heavily. I schedule my time down to the half hour. The more appearances I did with Curtis, the more the thirty-minute blocks on my calendar started to run together. I soon found myself overwhelmed. I felt like work was consuming my life. I finally went to Curtis and told him I had to step back. I agreed to do one or two appearances a week, but that was all. I had to bring balance back into my schedule. “I love being involved in the community and these are the people who put food on my table by watching our show, and I want to show them my appreciation, but I know what my limits are,” I told him.

  The problem wasn’t that I had reached my limits on interacting with people. My life had fallen out of balance. I hardly had time for my family, boyfriend, or for the Bible study I led for a group of high school girls from my church. I needed to figure out how to get things back to where they belonged.

  A LITTLE LESS than a year after I took the morning anchor position, Larry called me back into his office. “I need you to cover the Sanford election watch party and interview him after the results are in,” he said to me. Mark Sanford was the 2002 Republican candidate for governor of South Carolina. I’d interviewed him on set as part of the morning show but that was very different from covering his campaign on its biggest night. During the campaign I’d also interviewed the Democratic incumbent, Jim Hodges. Governor Hodges appeared on our show many times during his term in office. He made himself available to the press more than any politician I’ve ever seen. I really appreciated that about him.

  Even though I had interviewed both candidates in the governor’s race, that did not make me comfortable covering politics. I’d even interviewed former president Jimmy Carter on the release of his book An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood, but we didn’t talk about his political views. My family didn’t discuss politics when I was growing up. My father told us how important it is to vote, and my parents were very conservative, but I never heard them talking about candidates or issues. We spent our time around the dinner table talking about our days and whatever was going on in our lives.

  I agreed to do the assignment since Earhardts don’t turn down work assignments, but I was nervous. I had no idea what I should ask the possible governor-elect or how I should ask it. Looking back after working at Fox News for more than a decade, I find it funny that I felt so inadequate covering politics. Today I come up with questions in a heartbeat, but back then I agonized over every question I prepared.

  On the night of the election I went to the local barbecue restaurant where the Sanford campaign was holding its watch party. We South Carolinians love our barbecue, so a candidate for governor holding his election-night party there did not seem at all out of the ordinary. At least I knew the food was going to be good, but I was almost too nervous to eat. When I arrived I spotted a friend’s husband, Aaron, who was a reporter for a local paper. Aaron had covered political campaigns for years. I rushed over and pulled him aside. “Aaron, will you please look over these questions I’ve prepared for when I interview Mark Sanford once the results are in and let me know what you think?” Thankfully, he agreed. He gave me some advice and even suggested a couple more questions. I felt more prepared, but still nervous.

  Early in the night I interviewed then-candidate Sanford but the questions I asked had been easy to come up with. He’d held a lead in the polls up to the election, so I asked him how he felt waiting for the results to come in. He answered exactly like any candidate answers those questions. I didn’t expect anything different. Honestly, I had trouble containing my excitement at having a front-row seat for the election.

  Finally the votes were in. Governor Hodges conceded the election. Everyone in the restaurant cheered and yelled. The new governor-elect came out and made a speech. Then it was my turn. To be honest, I do not remember anything I asked him. Once the interview was over, I let out a sigh of relief, did a couple of final reports for the late news, then headed home.

  A couple of days after the election Larry called me into his office. “I need to give you some constructive criticism,” he said. I knew I needed to hear what he had to say, but I dreaded it at the same time. I always wanted to do the best job possible. No one likes hearing they messed up.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You asked Sanford too many softball questions. I could tell you were excited about him winning. It was obvious you liked him as a candidate,” he said.

  “To be honest, Larry, I wanted to be nice to him because that’s my nature and I’ve never really covered politics to that degree before. But, please tell me what I should have done differently.”

  “You need to ask tough questions but also be fair. As a journalist, you cannot be biased. You have to play both sides and treat both sides the same,” Larry said.

  Every time I now interview a politician from either major party I hear Larry’s words echoing in my ears. Covering the Sanford campaign was a learning experience for me, just like nearly everything else I did at WLTX. Through the three years Curtis and I anchored the morning show I felt myself growing professionally, spiritually, and personally. Not only had I gained a better understanding of what it meant to be on camera every day, but I came to see what my responsibilities were as a journalist—both to viewers and to myself. Though it was still hard for me to be fully myself on camera, I knew it was something that I could continue to improve. It had been my dream job, only my dreams were bigger. When my contract came up in January of 2005, I decided
to spread my wings and see where they might take me.

  7

  Ready for a New Challenge

  Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

  —GENESIS 12:1

  I COULD HAVE stayed in Columbia forever. My family was close by, which allowed my parents and grandparents to watch me anchor the morning news every day. The station steadily increased my salary every year, which allowed me to move out of the apartment I shared with four other girls and buy a home of my own. Curtis and I continued to top the morning news ratings. On top of it all, Kevin and I decided to get married and we got engaged. On a purely human level, I could have settled into Columbia and spent the rest of my career and life there. We both went to college there, had many friends in Columbia and both had good jobs.

  But after five years at WLTX I knew it was time for me to make a change. I needed new professional challenges. Aside from my first two years of college at Florida State in Tallahassee and a few summers living away from home, I’d never been completely on my own. I may have owned my own home and had a burgeoning career, but I remained close enough to my parents that if my old Buick broke down, all I had to do was call my dad and he’d be right there. It was time for me to strike out on my own.

  The same was true of work. I loved WLTX and the people with whom I worked, but it was my hometown station. I understood the market because I grew up there. I needed to test myself by moving to a market that was not second nature to me.