1.
Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they're gang wars and racial riots.
Jessica Savitch
2.
The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.
Jessica Savitch
3.
For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.
Jessica Savitch
4.
Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.
Jessica Savitch
5.
Never refuse an assignment except when there is a conflict of interest, a potential of danger to you or your family, or you hold a strongly biased attitude about the subject under focus.
Jessica Savitch
6.
Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.
Jessica Savitch
7.
It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.
Jessica Savitch
8.
No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.
Jessica Savitch
9.
Mistakes are not always the result of someone's ineptitude.
Jessica Savitch
10.
I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked?
Jessica Savitch
11.
Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.
Jessica Savitch
12.
I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.
Jessica Savitch
13.
The bad news is that 50 people died in a hotel fire; the good news is that we got exclusive footage.
Jessica Savitch
14.
You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.
Jessica Savitch
15.
Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.
Jessica Savitch
16.
How valuable NBC Magazine was in my career is questionable.
Jessica Savitch
17.
In the beginning, my mother humored me when I told her I wanted to be a reporter.
Jessica Savitch
18.
My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.
Jessica Savitch
19.
My most lucrative job in college was a stint as the regional Dodge Girl.
Jessica Savitch
20.
Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.
Jessica Savitch
21.
When for so long you can't get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.
Jessica Savitch
22.
I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.
Jessica Savitch
23.
News events cannot be controlled, nor can newscasts be mapped out like entertainment shows.
Jessica Savitch
24.
Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.
Jessica Savitch
25.
I hadn't realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.
Jessica Savitch
26.
What is the value of sticking a microphone in a man's face right after he has learned of his wife's death?
Jessica Savitch
27.
Walking into a room filled with people you don't know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.
Jessica Savitch
28.
One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.
Jessica Savitch
29.
A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You're flesh and blood.
Jessica Savitch
30.
Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.
Jessica Savitch
31.
Women were seldom given quality assignments or adequate air time.
Jessica Savitch
32.
When I first anchored in 1970, I had never seen a woman anchor a news show.
Jessica Savitch
33.
The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.
Jessica Savitch
34.
The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.
Jessica Savitch
35.
The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.
Jessica Savitch
36.
In every interview I have ever read or seen or taken part in, the final question in our future-oriented society is always, What next?
Jessica Savitch
37.
It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS.
Jessica Savitch
38.
The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.
Jessica Savitch
39.
Although I was entirely relaxed on camera, if I had to stand up and say something to an assembled group of people, I was rendered all but inarticulate.
Jessica Savitch
40.
By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.
Jessica Savitch
41.
The relationship between talent — a term loosely applied to those who work on-air — and management is uneasy, at best.
Jessica Savitch
42.
In real life, events seem much less dramatic.
Jessica Savitch
43.
Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.
Jessica Savitch
44.
I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.
Jessica Savitch
45.
Being a novelty had its advantages.
Jessica Savitch
46.
The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me.
Jessica Savitch
47.
The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.
Jessica Savitch
48.
Men still control the news, both on and off camera.
Jessica Savitch
49.
A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.
Jessica Savitch
50.
In interviews I gave early on in my career, I was quoted as saying it was possible to have it all: a dynamic job, marriage, and children. In some respects, I was a social adolescent.
Jessica Savitch