Practicum III Final Paper

Maggie Sutton

News Media Practicum III

Final Paper

December 2, 2011

Oprah Winfrey is My Home Girl

            As cliché as it might sound, I grew up watching the Oprah Winfrey show. From the time I was very young, my mom and I religiously tuned in to her 4 p.m. broadcast every single day after school. As ridiculous as it seemed, I cried when she closed her last show. For me, the end of the Oprah Winfrey Show symbolized the closing of my childhood and the beginning of working towards the realization of my own dreams. I know it’s a BIG dream, but I think eventually somewhere along the line of my career I would love to be a talk show host like Oprah. I know it’s a long shot, but my mom always tells me that going for the “big dream” is always worth a try. 

            Oprah’s career in broadcast started when she was only a senior in high school. She got a job at a radio station in Tennessee, a local black radio station called WVOL, which hired her part time. Then she began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Working in the local media, Oprah was the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore’s WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o’clock news. Her first appearance on a talk show was when she was recruited to join Richard Sher as the co-host of WJZ’s local talk show People Are Talking. The show premiered on August 14, 1978. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars.

            In 1983, Oprah relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV’s low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM  Chicago. After the first episode aired on January 2, 1984, the show quickly went from last place in the ratings to the highest rated talk show in Chicago. She was persuaded to sign a syndication deal with King World by Roger Ebert, a movie critic. The show was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, and expanded to a full hour. The show was first broadcast nationally on September 8, 1986. The show grew and expanded until she finally retired in 2011.

            When I can take from Oprah’s story is the way she started small and worked her way to the top. Even if I start out with a small job in the new industry, like a local radio or TV station, as long as I keep working hard and looking for larger job openings, I can work my way to the top of the broadcast. And maybe, just maybe, someday I will have my own talk show like my Home Girl Oprah. 

Information courtesy of www.oprah.com