Fall 2005 PDF - Milton Academy

The first person she interviewed was LarryKudlow, a business legend. “I hadn’t studiedbusiness and barely knew the differencebetween a stock and a bond,” Feliciasays. “Larry gave me my reading list,which included the Wall Street Journal andCharles Mackay’s Extraordinary PopularDelusions and the Madness of Crowds”—a tome that introduced Felicia to the conceptof bubbles, among other financialphenomena (the tulip bubble in Hollandin the 1600s—when tulips traded at ahigher price than gold—was one of the1841 book’s case studies).Felicia hit her first bump when CNBCbought FNN and the supply-demand balanceleft Felicia without a job. She movedto London, signed on for a few classes atSotheby’s and made a list of just aboutevery producer in London. Before she’dexhausted her list, a friend’s husbandmentioned that the Financial Timesplanned a new business show, and Feliciagot her break in London. She joinedCNBC in 1992 as London correspondentfrom the Financial Times, where sheanchored three business shows seen onSky Television and Superchannel.Since 2003, Felicia has been co-anchor ofNewsChannel 4. Prior to that, she was theco-anchor for NewsChannel 4’s “WeekendToday in New York,” the station’s top-ratedweekend morning news programs. Shejoined News Channel 4 in October 1998from CNBC, where she was co-anchor of“Today’s Business” and “Market Watch.”While at CNBC, Felicia also served as acontributor to the weekday editions of“Today” in New York, providing daily businessand stock market updates. She alsohas contributed reports to NBC “News atSunrise.”One of Felicia's most important tenets inpreparing and delivering the news is this:“If I give my word to somebody, I stand byit,” she says. “ [But] the news is neverabout me. The news is the news: a bombingin Egypt, an explosion in an apartmentbuilding in Queens. I like to tell storiesthat affect a great number of people; I liketo tell them as much as I can.”Over a year ago, Felicia broke a story about”naked shorts”—a stock is sold short withoutany ability or intention to ever coverthe sale, a crime according to the SEC regulations,but a crime that has not regularlybeen punished. That story has since heldserver space on financial Internet sites andblogs, and in publications such as the WallStreet Journal.Felicia claims that her only formal trainingfor becoming a broadcast journalist camefrom Dale Deletis, former Milton SpeechTeam coach. “The gift of being able towrite well has also been very important.A news story should be simple to digest,”she says.Felicia applied to Milton late and enjoyedthe unusual experience of living as amember of the Pieh household with formerHeadmaster Jerry Pieh and his family.“I spent two great years there withthem and their slobbering dog,” shelaughs.Felicia has been nominated for an Emmyfive times.Name: Ned Roberts ’93Station: Reporter, WTSP-TV News,Tampa, FloridaNed believes that the best television newspieces let the characters tell the story. “Thepower is hearing directly from the source.In a well-done piece, you use everythingyou have. TV is a visual medium, so itpays to maximize what you get on tape.”Ned has been telling the stories well, asevidenced by an Emmy—one of two—hewon in 2004 for writing “Homecoming”about a soldier’s return from Afghanistan.“In local news, I think that writing is animportant piece that often gets overlooked,”he says.Finding a compelling story is anothermust-have, like Ned’s story about AmosKing, an inmate of the Florida prisonsystem who was scheduled to be put todeath until Governor Jeb Bush granted atemporary stay after Ned contacted theInnocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinicthat handles cases where postconvictionDNA testing of evidence can yield conclusiveproof of innocence. “I asked if theywere looking at the case,” Ned recalls. Heexplained the lack of conclusive physicalevidence against King in stories thattraced King’s plight. In the end, mostphysical evidence had been lost ordestroyed, and Ned witnessed King’s executionon February 27, 2003, but Nedmaintains that it was right to pursue thestory and bring the issue of DNA evidencein old criminal trials to people’s consciousness.“The real power of local news is tospur government and community action,”Ned says.Ned’s continuing coverage of Death Rowinmate King earned him an Edward R.Murrow Award in 2003. Also that year, hewon an Emmy Award for his live reportfrom a hurricane simulator. In 2002, hisreport on the U.S. Coast Guard tall shipEagle earned him an Emmy Award nomination.When Ned pursues an assignmentor an idea, he’s “thinking about what storyI can tell and whether it’s something that Imight want to know about.Felicia Taylor ’82 Ned Roberts ’93 with Michelle Jordan (see page 78)15 Milton Magazine