I was proud of the work.Īnd Keith helped me. Will the subways run? Where are the cooling centers during a heat wave? How are the police responding to crime? What’s the city doing to keep buildings up to code? It’s not always exhilarating but it’s essential. National news has sweep and an air of grandeur, but local news is much more likely to tell you something that’s going to change, if not your country, your morning, your evening, your weekend plans. Local news is easily mocked and often is, but don’t let the occasional bad toupee fool you. I covered shootings, stabbings, robberies, gas explosions, crane collapses, and fires. I was making the city my own just as my parents had done for Los Angeles. But it was also an odd kind of privilege to be awake and sober in the hours before dawn, working, witnessing New York as few people do. I was going to work as people were still stumbling out of bars and the morning papers were still being printed. I sent out a new tape and got a freelance job reporting for the 5am morning show at WPIX. Princess Turd recovered but not at News12. So when I refused to go cover a small fire alone a few minutes before my 11pm shift ended, I became the “princess.” Instead I was confident, some would say cocky, and unlike my father, I wasn’t willing to get myself killed for a story. I was a new reporter in a new city and I was supposed to agree to every assignment with enthusiasm and humility. But was he really an authority on women’s clothes and hair? Did telling me my boobs were too big and that I needed to cut my hair like he wanted, not strike him as a little presumptuous, not to mention sexist? He wasn’t unstylish, exactly, not by the standards of the news business. “You can choose from any of these styles I’ve picked out for you.” “If you want to appear on camera at my station,” he said, “you need to cut your hair.”

The news director sighed and handed me the photos. But I didn’t expect some sort of headshot hall of fame. People were going to comment on your appearance. I thought I was ready for this kind of meeting. He pulled out a half dozen glossy pictures of the sort you might see in the front of a salon at the mall. Ladies and gentlemen, I shit you not, it was a binder full of women. But we both nodded in mutual understanding even if I was mortified at the same time. He might have said breasts or chest or just gestured with a pencil. Your boobs look too big in your TV clothes, he said with a shrug. He leaned back behind his big desk, in his big office, and took on an air of casual truth.

Katy tur fashion faux pas today