We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful JEANNE Rawdin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with JEANNE below.
JEANNE, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Most of my career was spent as an TV news producer, writer, and on-air reporter. I started behind the camera and worked my way to being in front of it. When I look back, there were several key moments where I just recognized an opportunity and went for it, by mainly observing what was happening around me.
When our 6:30 newscast producer gave her notice, I was in the news director’s office expressing my interest in the job on the same day. When I noticed that it was always difficult to get reporters to work weekends, I offered to be a weekend reporter, with no on-air experience. I was a newscast producer during the week, and had never been in front of a camera lens. They said yes, and agreed to pay me a stipend of $100 a day. I was thrilled. I would have done it for free.
That was the start of my on-air experience. I think the lesson in all of this is pay attention, watch the details, and work hard at what you do. Be humble but make sure people are noticing your work. Then, when you see an opening, believe in yourself and step through the doorway. Even if you’re scared shitless, do it. Fear is the number-one thing that stands in the way of our success, both professionally and personally.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started my career as a book editor in New York City and San Diego, working for companies including Viking Penguin, Henry Holt, HBJ, and Consumer Reports Books. (Many of those companies don’t exist anymore, or have merged with others.) When editing got rather ho-hum for me (sitting in front of a stack of pages every day), I decided to pursue TV news, based on the suggestion of a friend who said he thought I’d be really good at it. Sometimes it’s someone else’s observation about you that can spur you to think in new directions. So I thought about it. I had the journalistic skills already. I decided to go back to college and pursue an Associate’s degree in telecommunications, which led to internships at TV stations which led to my first job in TV news, as an associate writer. I got to write a few stories for the news, and also pick up the station’s mail on Saturdays and sort it out in the mailroom into the appropriate slots — a humbling aspect of my budding TV news career. But there is authentic value in starting from the ground up (or, in my case, from the mailroom up).
I have more than thirty-five years of experience as a journalist, video storyteller, writer, and editor. For most of my career, I worked as a newscast producer and on-air reporter for the San Diego network affiliates of NBC, ABC, and CBS as well as Cox Communications Channel 4. I’m humbled to have received 16 Emmy Awards throughout my career as a TV journalist, as well as numerous Press Club and Golden Mike awards. I have owned my own video production company and have worked as a writing coach, ghostwriter, and editor for writers. I recently retired from UC San Diego’s Sanford Stem Cell Institute as a Communications Manager.
As a freelancer, I worked as a writing coach with the Narrative Project for four years. I am also a freelance writer and video producer who has worked with a variety of clients from book authors to entrepreneurs to realtors to nonprofit and corporate companies.
I’m most proud of the storytelling I was able to do with highly creative videographers and editors — to tell real stories of real people making a difference in the world. When I was working with private clients, it was the same thing — to bring out their unique story so that others could identify with the triumphs and struggles we universally go through as a species. The magic ingredients were always emotion and vulnerability. A wise writer once told me that we all connect through our vulnerabilities and I’ve never forgotten that. That’s how we survive in this world and find our place in it. It’s all about the human connection and storytelling is at the heart of that.
When I was a writing coach, the ultimate goal was to help that writer get their particular story on the page. I often thought of the job as part coach, part therapist, because being honest enough with yourself to write it out for others to see takes great courage and insight, especially when you’re writing memoir, which my writers were. The first impulse is to glaze over one’s experiences, to “normalize” them so others won’t think you’re strange or odd. But the strangeness and oddness is the exact point of writing. It’s that uniqueness in each of us that others are drawn to, not the sameness.
To that same point, whenever I produce videos for a company or non-profit, I investigate what sets that company apart from others — what are the one-of-a-kind qualities that are present? This is how I frame the storytelling — making sure that something stands out, apart and worthy of noting, from others.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Telling particular stories about people is really what drives my creative journey — and those stories and interests change as I’ve continued on my professional journey. Climate change and environmental issues were always important to me, and still are. Stories about children have always held a special place in my heart. And my third area of interest is seniors and quality of living. During my journalism career, I met so many seniors who had wisdom to share and insights to offer, and I was drawn to those who maintained their health, so that they could go on imparting that wisdom and making a difference in the world no matter how old they were. I got interested in senior health issues and brain health in general. I mean, after all, humans reach their physical peak at 35 and then it’s downhill, so we need to gracefully battle that downhill slide! I’ve recently taught a course with a colleague of mine on “discovering longevity” which is all about how to prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s and promote brain health. I’m also getting certified as a health and wellness coach in this field to continue to teach classes to seniors on it. It’s a fascinating and growing field and it’s practical knowledge that people can use daily in their lives. So I would say my main mission these days is to impart that practical knowledge to seniors so that they can maintain healthy lives and be happy and continue to make a difference. And it’s knowledge I personally apply to my own life every day.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson I had to unlearn was trying to fit in or keep up with or be like everybody else. There are a lot of big egos in TV news and sometimes I got caught up in that rat race. I also got caught up in a lot of gender bias – being a female in a male-dominated profession where many of the men around you didn’t want you to succeed was a huge challenge for me at times. I went through many years of constant come-ons, and me cow-towing to male discrimination, thinking there was nothing I could do about it. But finally, I got strong enough to take action in the face of that discrimination, and let me tell you — the men didn’t like it. But it was empowering to me and every step I took toward courage made me stronger and more effective as a leader. I still believe women go through this in today’s world across all professions, and the faster that professional females take a stand for themselves, the further they will go. It’s easier to break through many barriers today, but it’s overcoming that fear — once again — that’s the biggest hurdle. It sounds so corny, but I would say to any young woman in a professional career out there — Believe in Yourself!
Contact Info:
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-rawdin-21168236/
- Other: rawdinjeanne@gmail.com
Image Credits
Photos courtesy Bettina Hanna