For a veteran of 18 years, ABC7 News anchor woman Heidi Godman still has a gee whiz attitude towards her work—particularly as she shows off the station's newish building north of town.
And gee whiz it is— sleek, and by all appearances, wired and wired again to provide the latest in TV production. Offering a tour through editing, control and production rooms, Heidi is an experienced guide who delights in showing what the station is capable of doing.
“It's so cool,” she comments as we finish the tour and enter the news studio where she is on air weekdays as co-anchor of the five and six p.m. news.
It's a long way from the station's cramped former studios on Clark Road—the memory of which draws a smile and a non-nostalgic sigh. Days of typewriters and videotape gave way to computers, cell phones and digital everything. Through it all she's glad, she says, to have been able to see the transition, because it has given her a “good perspective” on her industry, her community and her station. As for perspective on her career, Heidi started at ABC7 in 1988 (hired by Linda Desmarais, now Manager at SNN-6), having come from a reporting job at KJCT-TV in Grand Junction, Colorado.
In tenure she's edged just a bit by weatherman Bob Harrigan who has been at the station for 20 years and her co-anchor Scott Dennis who also has two decades at the ABC affiliate. Such continuity for her brings “a sense of pride” and, well, a lot more to work with. Two decades ago the newsroom had 19 people. Now that number is 50.
Off camera she's as comfortable and poised as on air, but displays a quick wit and sharp sense of humor. She also moves around, in part because she's not in one of those bolted anchor chairs.
Like all young reporters in the field, Heidi expected to move around a lot and Sarasota was the DC native's third job after assignments in smaller markets. In college at West Virginia University she also did four internships. So when Heidi became a general assignment reporter she more or less assumed she'd be here two years. “I was a weekend reporter and I had no interest in being an anchor,” she recalls. Time, talent, fortuitous happenstance and love all played parts in altering that life plan.
Heidi had vacationed on Longboat Key with her family years ago and her parents planned on retiring here. She beat them to the punch with her job, but they, and her sister followed (a brother lives in Tampa and another sister is still in DC). Sarasota was also where she met her husband, Jay, with whom has had three children: Alexa, Christopher and Carson. No pun intended, but it appears Heidi is anchored here now.
Her early years at what was then called WWSB Channel 40 were all about breaking or “hard” news —“exciting stuff” —she calls it, like crime: “the bloodier the better,” she jokes. Over the years she's reported on the May's baby swap story, the demolition of the Ringling Towers, and the Pee Wee Herman spectacle. It was where she wanted to be, she felt. When she found herself pregnant for the first time she recalls being asked to do “40 Cares About Kids” and still was in her “no fluff for me” mindset. “My icy exterior melted and I looked at stories differently.”
| It was also the same time that the Susan Smith story was in the news (the woman who drowned her 3 children). “Having children changes your perspective,” she notes. As her family grew, her interest in hard news waned.
But what piqued her reporter's curiosity was a chance to do a story at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
“I was told to go to watch a new heart procedure.” She recalls of the pivotal moment. “I was fascinated and I loved it. I was a general assignment reporter and walked out a medical reporter. It changed my life.”
As a result of that keen interest and her solid reporting skills, Heidi is ABC7’s medical editor. She has earned the distinction of being the first TV broadcaster in the country to be named a journalism fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. Two other honors for excellence in cardiovascular communications came from Florida’s American Heart Association. “I should have been a doctor,” she muses.
When offered the anchor slot it was again a merger of the personal with the professional. While she's advanced professionally from general assignment to weekend anchor, to noon news and then to evening news, she won't be found at 11 p.m. due to her commitment to her family. “I was always happy being a reporter. Reporting is really hard. With anchoring, it's reporting in the studio.” She never had the strong pull to a larger market as she feels the station has been very supportive of her and her schedule needs.
As for her work as an anchor, hurricanes have been the predominant story and most significant ongoing story she's had to cover. The past few years the station has been deluged with calls from viewers needing information and most of the crew camped out at the station when one was looming. “With hurricanes there are no scripts—you just go wall to wall (no breaks). They tell you things in your ear and you get by by the seat of your pants. We were thanked for just being on the air.”
The flip side of the serious stuff is the, well, less that substantial non-news stuff that she and all on-air personalities have to deal with. “People expect you to do well on air, but they comment on hair, jewelry,” she notes. Many assume she and Scott are a couple based solely on the fact that they report the news together and have a genuine cordial relationship. “Scott and I are good friends” but, she notes, each has a partner and a family. Heidi includes fellow journalist Linda Carson as someone she looks up to professionally. Personally, she admires her mom. “She's the best,” Heidi states, smiling.
Heidi's family is clearly of utmost importance to her. She arrives at the station in the afternoon to prepare for the evening news. She drops the kids off in the a.m.; Jay gets them in the p.m. The studio where she works is a large room with distinct work areas. The news anchor desk is at one end and opposite it is a kitchen area where on-air cooking segments are done. Between the two is a cozy set for one-on-one interviews.
Three cameras move automatically and display their teleprompters. Alas, all is not ultra modern. She always has a print version in case things happen.
Where she is right now clearly feels right. I've reached my goals...I wanted to tell people the news...tell you what is happening in your home town. It's a lifestyle, a paycheck and a privilege.
Story: Louise Bruderle
Photo: Barbara Banks
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