This is my last week working for the place that's been my second home for the entirety of my adult (re: post-college) life. I've done some pretty cool things working in television news, and the people who've been with me on this journey for the duration have become like family. So when Friday rolls around, there will likely be some tears shed for the life I'm leaving behind, but make no mistake - they'll be happy tears. My decision to pursue another career path may be bittersweet but it's so necessary and here's why.

When I started working in television, the relationship between news and social media was still new and barely existent. Myspace was still a thing and poke wars were still raging on Facebook. I hadn't even heard of Twitter yet. Viewers actually commented on web articles instead of just reading a headline on social media and jumping to conclusions in the post comments. Viewers were content waiting until the evening news to learn what happened that day. In other words, the local news cycle wasn't 24/7. That was 2009.

Fast forward to 2018 and everything I just wrote is no longer relevant. Viewers no longer differentiate between national and local media. They expect their local news sources to follow the same 24/7 news cycle of CNN. They want their news as it happens, and local news has been adapting to that demand.

At first the bigger time commitment was no big deal, but then I got married and had a baby. More and more I felt like I was having to choose between news or spending time with the most important people in my life. Even worse, it began to feel as if I was expected to put my family aside time and time again for the sake of news. That demand on my time had even crept into my weekends, stealing the two of the four whole days I had with my husband and daughter every month.


I will be the first to tell you: news is not for the faint of heart or for the person who can't commit. But I never imagined my job as a producer, or even as executive producer, would turn into a 24/7 commitment in which I was expected to constantly be on. The constant battle of feeling like I was letting down coworkers or bosses by making my family my top priority became my biggest stressor.

As I said in my post about leaving TV news, I wasn't looking for a new job, but when I accepted that I no longer wanted to pursue this path and that a new opportunity was possible, it was as if a giant weight lifted from my shoulders. When the job offer came I felt more joy and excitement than I've felt over employment in a long time. And that was when I knew my course with TV news was drawing to a close.

This will be the first time in my life that I've taken a risk this big - leaving a sure thing for something that may fail. But you know what they say: you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.