University of Montana J-School alum Meg Oliver is used to speaking to a crowd. More often than not that means standing before a nationwide audience as a broadcast news reporter for ABC News.
During a recent visit to the UM School of Journalism, Oliver's audience was far smaller, but no less interested. Listening to the 1993 graduate of the J-School were seniors enrolled in the UM News broadcast class.
Their interest was piqued as Oliver described what it took to work her way up from early local television news jobs that required her to report on just about everything imaginable—from breaking news to weather to sports—before finally landing top reporting and anchoring positions on major national news networks.
The visit meant a lot to the students in the UM News class, including Faith Cronin. "It's really great to hear advice from someone who has done it, who has been there," Cronin said. "She obviously got somewhere for a reason."
Oliver's first journalism job was a part-time reporting position at KECI News in Missoula. Fresh out of college, she couldn't believe her good luck. In addition to her job at KECI, Oliver also worked at a local health club. "I thought I had the best of both worlds," she said a laugh.
Following her stint in Missoula, Oliver was hired as a full-time reporter at KCFW News in Kalispell. After the departure of most of the station's staff she was quickly elevated into the main anchor seat. "I did everything, it was a one-man band," she said. "I was there for a year-and-a-half, loved it. Never wanted to leave."
Next up were stints in Boise and Seattle with Northwest Cable News. Wanting to move closer to family back East, Oliver soon took a reporting job in Hartford, Conn. A year later she landed back home in Detroit, Mich., where she began reporting and doing fill-in anchoring for the CBS news affiliate WKBD. "It was great. I was back in my hometown, which has a lot of appeal."
Oliver's quick rise through the broadcast news profession continued, with increasingly higher profile positions at top news stations in California and Washington, D.C. Now married, she and her husband thought they would remain in the nation's capital. But then she got the call she couldn't refuse: CBS News in New York City. "They knew I had anchor experience and the next thing we knew I was up doing an interview. I asked my husband ‘Do you have one more move in you?'"
Today Oliver balances raising her three children and working as a freelance television reporter for ABC News. Her reporting for ABC began with a one-month assignment that contained no promises of long-term employment. Fortunately, it turned into steady work. She's been at it for the past three years. On the weekends she reports for Good Morning America and World News Now with David Muir. "It keeps my foot in the door," she explained. "I have three kids under the age of five. I can't be a full-time correspondent traveling with the suitcase packed by my bed."
So what's it like returning to the UM campus and advising up-and-coming broadcast students? "I get so inspired coming back. It's invigorating to be back here," Oliver said. "It's so exciting and rewarding to be able come back and talk to them about good reporting, good writing, to be able to coach them with their anchor skills."
Upon graduation next spring, these seniors will be more prepared for the real world of broadcast news than many of their counterparts graduating from other journalism schools around the country that don't provide such hands-on experience, said Oliver. "What I learned here was to do it all. They prepared me for the real world. I think it gives all these graduates a real edge that they know how to shoot and edit and write," she said. "I have a cousin who's a reporter in a top-20 market right now. The trend is one-man banding again. You have to be able to do it all."
Oliver's insight into the current state of broadcast news as well as her practical tips on such things as clothing, haircuts and makeup clearly impressed the students. These are not trivial matters in such a visual medium, she said. For Dustin Klemann, the only male anchor in the UM News class, the advice came as a bit of a surprise.
"It is very visual like she said," Klemann observed. "I was able to take a lot away from it. She said keep the same haircut, make sure you shave all the time. There were a lot of interesting things she said that I didn't know was the case."
Oliver also gave students in the class a dose of realism about the amount of work and dedication it can take to reach a high level of success. "Everybody wants to make it right out of college," Klemann said. "She said you can be successful, but here are the steps you need to take to get there."
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