Former TV news anchor shares advice for students

The world of broadcast journalism is competitive. Journalists have to work quickly and accurately to get stories covered first; but before you can pick up a microphone and begin reporting, you have to get hired. Today, we focus on a graduate of Troy University who served in the TV news business for years and has returned to teach students about the industry in hopes of getting them hired.

Stefanie Hicks East grew up in Enterprise, Alabama, before attending Troy’s Hall School of Journalism and Communication, majoring in broadcast journalism. She worked at the on-campus television station TSU TV, which is now known as Troy TrojanVision News, then accepted an internship with WTVY in Dothan, Alabama.

She was soon hired, and worked to create broadcast news stories independently, as a “one-man band.” She was then promoted as the station’s morning news anchor and woke up every morning at 1 a.m. to produce the newscast.

She then took on another job opportunity in 2004 as the evening news anchor at WAKA CBS 8, now known as the Alabama News Network, in Montgomery. For fourteen years, she worked until 11 p.m. each night sharing news with her viewers until 2018.

East now works as a lecturer at her alma mater and she shared with me some tips for aspiring journalists.

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