We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Savannah Welch a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Savannah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

I don’t think I could have a regular job. As a TV reporter, my days are consistently, well, very inconsistent. Whether it’s running around the city, anchoring at the station, preparing a forecast or memorizing facts last-minute for a live hit, every day is something new. Each shift brings different challenges, and I’m always learning and growing both as a reporter and a person.

I do view myself as a creative. It’s always funny to hear people say they don’t see reporters as having a creative job. I’ve heard people call journalists hard-nosed, critical and calculated. But as a journalist, you are also a storyteller, and that requires a ton of creativity.

In college, I remember wondering what qualities I wanted in my first job. That’s important, right? You might love the work you do, but you might not like spending hours behind a screen, sitting in a rolling chair only to get up for trips to the bathroom. That’s what I didn’t want. I remember working at one of my college internships and thinking, “This is the last time I spend months behind a desk.”

With those guidelines in mind, choosing a reporting position as my first job seemed like a good fit. It was different from any internship or position I’d had in the past. It was a job where your office looked different every day and you weren’t paid to expect the expected.

This summer, I moved 104 news markets from Bakersfield, California to Portland, Oregon to report for Portland’s ABC affiliate. Having only been in the industry for a year, I have learned so much and can imagine myself continuing on this path for the foreseeable future.

While I love this job, there are just as many days when I talk to my friends and hear about their lives doing the 9 to 5 gig. I’m constantly reminded of what it’s like to have a schedule that’s accommodating to holidays and longer vacation times. Plus, this job can be hard to switch off once you clock out. As many people in the news industry say, you’re ‘on’ so much of the time that it can be hard to turn ‘off.’

So yes, being a reporter is wildly fulfilling, but it can also fall to burnout. But hey, I’m happy, and at least if I am burning out, it’s from doing something I love.

Savannah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The short answer is, I do a lot. I always have. When I was in college, I was addicted to multitasking and struggled with time management. I had to-do lists on to-do lists, and I wanted to put the maximum amount of effort into everything. As I transitioned from college into the real world, I took that mentality with me, which works well as a reporter since you have a multitude of responsibilities. TV journalists have to be able to write conversationally for scripts, articulately for web articles, adlib under pressure, have good interpersonal skills and maintain an updated social media presence. There’s a lot to do, and somehow I manage to get it all done before clocking out at the end of every day.

I didn’t always know I wanted to go into broadcast news. Growing up, playing the piano was a foundational part of my life. I started lessons at the age of 4, and it was something that kept me grounded (and still does). Playing the piano would help me unwind as life became increasingly stressful. Out of high school, I received scholarships to several piano performance programs, however, I had some reservations as I didn’t know what I would do with a music degree.

Instead, I decided to do what any 18-year-old with no life experience would and study something that sounded interesting. I decided to enroll as a media production major at Pepperdine University. I always loved filming, editing videos and working on projects. Plus, I was a theatre kid, so I thought it might be a good fit. The first week, I tried out for the broadcast team and immediately fell in love. I took on various roles all four years, including reporting, directing, producing and anchoring. I also wrote for Pepperdine’s newspaper, The Graphic, as well as the journalism department’s Currents Magazine and several special-edition releases.

After graduating *virtually* in 2020 during the pandemic, I started my master’s program at the University of Southern California where I was admitted on a near-full scholarship. Similar to undergrad, I was in leadership positions on the broadcast and digital teams, even spearheading a documentary called “Breath Taking” that aired on Spectrum News 1 in Los Angeles.

From there, I immediately started my full-time job as a reporter, fill-in anchor and forecaster for Bakersfield’s FOX and CBS stations and took on my reporting role in Portland in July 2022.

Looking back, I have come to realize that even though I am highly independent and strong-willed, I am also just as sensitive. Being sensitive helps me in my job, as I look at nuances and analyze grey areas of stories. It also helps in interviewing people. I can’t tell you how many times during a conversation the person will stop and say, “I don’t think I’ve told anyone that before.” My dad’s a therapist, so maybe his powers transferred to me?

That’s why I believe this job is a crash course in finding balance. It helps you decide what to internalize since you can’t take in everything at once. Sometimes, I think that’s what sets sensitive people apart in this industry. You have to have thick skin, but it’s just as important to take a step back and recognize when to let people in and lend an empathetic ear. As Jean-Xavier de Lestrade in The Staircase said, “If you don’t live life, you can’t represent it.”

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The following is not necessarily a career pivot, but rather a situation that highlights how important it is to advocate for yourself when going through a difficult situation.

In November 2021, I was in a car crash while covering a story in Bakersfield. Several photographers and I were headed out of town in a news van when another driver slammed into us in the middle of an intersection. We crossed three lanes and hit an island divider. Being in the front passenger seat, my side of the car went completely over the divider and I hit my head on the car ceiling. I was diagnosed with a concussion and neck misalignment later that day.

I was out of work for several months, having only been at the station for 5 months. What made it worse was I was in a car crash in August 2020, so the head injuries compounded from the two incidents, which meant a longer recovery time.

It felt like the end of the road for me. I was in such a groove at the station, constantly trying to get better at my job and I felt like the crash derailed my months of work. I was also very nauseous from the injury and my head wouldn’t stop throbbing for weeks. I had memory loss, was forgetful, and at times, unable to finish my sentences. To this day, I still have lingering headaches that doctors say are linked to the accident.

Following the crash, I felt lonely being by myself in Bakersfield, a 4-hour drive from my hometown of San Diego. Thankfully, one of my coworkers and other friends and family spent a lot of time with me and it helped me feel less alone.

Following the crash, I returned to the station in February 2022 and finished physical therapy. It was a difficult time, but it allowed me to grow as a person and taught me some important lessons, one being that you have to be your best advocate. Because if not you, then who?

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

A book that has guided my mental wellness (and overall sanity) during the last 4 years is Norwegian author Erling Kagge’s “Silence: In the Age of Noise.” I’ve given this book to several friends and have reread it too many times to count.

In September 2019, I wrote an article for our university newspaper’s Perspectives column on silence, referencing Kagge’s work. In the article, I wrote:

“Kagge wrote in his book ‘Silence: In the Age of Noise’: ‘Routine is like that too… Busying oneself becomes a goal in and of itself, instead of allowing that same restlessness to lead you somewhere further. Within the clamor of schedules, it can be easy to overlook the importance of silence.’

Noise is everywhere. It comes from a variety of sources and is both internal and external. Thoughts and emotions consume as much of the day as activities and to-do lists. Ongoing sounds flood daily routines and can distract from what truly needs to be accomplished and can potentially hinder from finding time to recharge. Maybe watching another episode on Netflix or hanging out with friends isn’t the answer. Maybe what is truly being sought after is silence.

Silence is tricky. It’s unnerving, it’s heavy; it’s loud. Silence pulses in the midst of everything, lying steadily beneath the ever-present droning of noise. Silence flows through conversations, woven between schedules and commitments. People spin and cycle through new activities, new relationships, new friends. New apartments, new jobs, new ambitions surface because it’s known that what’s on the other side of these distractions is heavy and uncomfortable.

Meditation and reflection are essential to the human experience and are especially important during these college years, as stated in a 2013 Psychology Today article. Since college is such an influential time in one’s life, as freshmen transition into college and seniors think ahead to life after graduation, it’s important to have these quiet moments to reflect and ground oneself.

Regardless of religious preferences, making time and space in one’s schedule to write, meditate, pray, exercise or even just sit in the quiet is a great way to become more present. Focusing on one’s feelings and mental state will help overwhelming emotions and allow for deeper connection internally. Clearing one’s mind can lessen the clutter in one’s life, as being responsible for one’s mental space is just as important as being responsible for one’s workspace.”

I advise you to read this book. Maybe you too will find some silence within yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: savannahcwelch.com
• Instagram: @svnnh_wlch
• Facebook: m.facebook.com/savannahcwelch
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/savannahcwelch
• Twitter: @svnnh_wlch