Sarah Hutchins | Oct. 23, 2007
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| Photo by Crista Chapman |
| ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson talked to students about her career path from wanting to be Katie Couric to interviewing sports figures. |
“I was working as an assignment editor and my job was to send out crews, listen to police scanners, come up with stories and do this with people who have been doing it since I was a kid watching them on TV,” Jacobson said. “It was a really intimidating job but I knew that I wanted to be on the air. I knew that TV was the direction I wanted to go.”
Monday night, Jacobson talked to a crowd at Woodburn Hall about “What It Takes to Get to ESPN and Stay There.” Assistant professor Mike Conway, who worked with Jacobson several years ago in Traverse City, Mich., invited her to talk to his broadcast classes and share her story with a general audience during the evening talk.
In Traverse City, Jacobson worked as a news anchor, producer and editor at WPNB/WTOM. When a sports anchor left unexpectedly, Jacobson had the opportunity to anchor the sports desk.
"When I saw a quick clip of my old news anchoring and a clip of my old sports anchoring, (sports) was just something different,” Jacobson said. “It was just something where I felt more comfortable. I became a fill-in on sports and eventually I decided, you know, I want to do sports.”
She later moved to Sacramento, Calif., where she worked as a reporter and sports anchor at KXTV and KHTK radio.
“It was a big leap,” Jacobson said. “I spent six years waiting and being patient and learning what I do now. The worst thing that someone will tell you is, you just need time. And I remember hearing that and that’s what I needed in Sacramento. So I got six years to get good and learn how to tell a story and engage an audience and learn how to be someone people want to watch on TV.”
After working in California, Jacobson decided to switch jobs and interview with ESPN. Although getting a job at ESPN in 2002 was difficult, Jacobson said staying is harder.
“Once you get to ESPN, it’s about making yourself different from 30 other anchors, making yourself different from the other women there,” Jacobson said. “You really have to make yourself different. For me it was about being myself and making my interviews as conversational and personal as sitting in a room.”
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| Photo by Crista Chapman |
| "You really have to make yourself different," Jacobson told the crowd. "For me, it was about being myself and making my interviews as conversational and personal as sitting in a room.” |
Jacobson had several tips for making interviews unique and conversational.
“You want to make a connection,” Jacobson said. “I’ll just try to find anything that will give me that personal contact. You can’t fake TV. Its not acting and when you’re not you, people notice.”
Another tip was to stay away from prefabricated questions and listen to the interviewee. Jacobson showed a clip from Cold Pizza where she asked 2004 Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart to dance with her at the end of the interview.
“Everyone had talk to him already and I knew he had taken a dance class,” Jacobson said. “You want to find something to talk to them about that’s not the norm.”
Jacobson urged prospective interviewers to have a variety of knowledge on different sports instead of deep knowledge about one sport. ESPN has a team of people who helps anchors find information and statistics — Jacobson dubbed them “the little Schwabs” after Stump the Schwab – but it is best to keep as up-to-date as possible on a variety of topics.
While Jacobson does not know what her future career plans entail, she said she would like to be able to watch sports for fun.
“I still have a little Katie Couric inside of me,” Jacobson said. “Any time you’re at an event or watching a game, you are just reliving your day at work. I want to be able to go back to just watching.”
