The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.
Jessica Savitch
The news anchor is exactly that – an anchor, a center, a focus.
Jessica Savitch
The relationship between talent and management is uneasy, at best.
Jessica Savitch
The single life is not one I willingly chose for myself.
Jessica Savitch
To get it first is important – but more important is to get it right.
Jessica Savitch
Walking into a room filled with people you don’t know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.
Jessica Savitch
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
When I first anchored in 1970, I had never seen a woman anchor a news show.
Jessica Savitch
The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can’t grow old in television news.
Jessica Savitch
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
When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it would not have been possible for me to say, I want to be an anchorwoman when I grow up.
Jessica Savitch
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
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
The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.
Jessica Savitch
The bad news is that 50 people died in a hotel fire; the good news is that we got exclusive footage.
Jessica Savitch
Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.
Jessica Savitch
Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.
Jessica Savitch
Television is intensely personal.
Jessica Savitch
Being a novelty had its advantages.
Jessica Savitch
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
A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You’re flesh and blood.
Jessica Savitch
A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.
Jessica Savitch
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
Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.
Jessica Savitch
The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.
Jessica Savitch
Women may not have it easy, but we are given a fairer chance to reach for the top.
Jessica Savitch
Women were seldom given quality assignments or adequate air time.
Jessica Savitch
You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.
Jessica Savitch
Women didn’t want to watch other women on television because they were jealous of their husbands’ diverted attention.
Jessica Savitch
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
News events are like Texas weather. If you don’t like it, wait a minute.
Jessica Savitch
News events cannot be controlled, nor can newscasts be mapped out like entertainment shows.
Jessica Savitch
News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it’s only successful if it’s received.
Jessica Savitch
Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.
Jessica Savitch
No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.
Jessica Savitch
One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.
Jessica Savitch
Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.
Jessica Savitch
Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they’re gang wars and racial riots.
Jessica Savitch
Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.
Jessica Savitch
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
By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.
Jessica Savitch
For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.
Jessica Savitch
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
I hadn’t realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.
Jessica Savitch
I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.
Jessica Savitch
I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.
Jessica Savitch
How valuable NBC Magazine was in my career is questionable.
Jessica Savitch
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
My most lucrative job in college was a stint as the regional Dodge Girl.
Jessica Savitch
In real life, events seem much less dramatic.
Jessica Savitch
In the beginning, my mother humored me when I told her I wanted to be a reporter.
Jessica Savitch
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
It is my belief that one’s salary is between an individual and the IRS.
Jessica Savitch
Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.
Jessica Savitch
Men still control the news, both on and off camera.
Jessica Savitch
Mistakes are not always the result of someone’s ineptitude.
Jessica Savitch
My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.
Jessica Savitch
My goal was to be a network correspondent by the time I was 30.
Jessica Savitch
I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.
Jessica Savitch
