The Early Days of Impact News: The Women Who Built the Newsroom
Download MP3Welcome to Behind the Mics, a podcast highlighting the alumni of Impact eighty nine FM and the stories behind the voices that helped shape the station. I'm Lindsay Tague. In this episode, we're taking a look back at the early days of Impact's news department through the experiences of two women who helped build it from the ground up. Impact eighty nine f m's Delaney Rogers and Aden Taylor talked recently with Noel Torres and Nancy Donnelly, who were both deeply involved in the station's news programming during its early years, when the station was still evolving into what we know as Impact eighty nine fm. Noel Torres first joined the station when it was still known as WDBM, eventually becoming news director.
Speaker 2:Well, I started when it was WDBM. I was always in the newsroom, not not one of the cool kids that transferred over to to music. I had come from working at a high school radio station, so that was kind of a natural fit for me and eventually wound up as as news director. Keeping the newsroom running and working with the different writers and anchors. And I was always much happier being kinda behind the scenes and and working with, you know, the the different news writers and newscasters and coordinating that and thinking about what should we be covering, what is our role as a student station.
Speaker 1:For Noelle, the station quickly became more than just an extracurricular activity.
Speaker 2:I just can't think of my time at MSU without thinking of the radio station. That's what I think of first. That was the primary experience for me for college, both in terms of what I did. I don't know what that says about my education that I can't remember in any of my classes, but I sure can remember my time at the radio station, and it was my community.
Speaker 1:Before WDBM became what we know today, the station operated under a different name, WLFT. That's where Nancy Donnelly first found her place in student radio.
Speaker 3:I started at it was WLFT at the time. And I did it because I was a journalism student. And I think I started there in my second year of of college. And I remember at that time, had to go and actually go to register for our classes in a particular location. And I don't know what happened.
Speaker 3:I didn't get all the classes that I wanted. So I decided I was going to have to explain to my parents why I was not taking a full load of classes. After registration, I marched right over to the radio station because I was I was a broadcast journalism emphasis person. I wanted to be a news anchor at the time. I just marched over the station.
Speaker 3:I signed up for the news department so that I would be able to explain to my parents, this is what I was going to do to get this practical experience instead of the classes because I, you know, I didn't get the classes that I want. So I had to explain I was only gonna take like two classes or something and spend the most of my time doing this.
Speaker 1:Nancy began as a volunteer in the news department.
Speaker 3:And I didn't know anything at the time, and I did do a little bit of music, you know, I I had a little show, but it was just like, I was really into what was called new wave at the time, and this is like 1989, 1990, something like that. But I I, you know, I really wanted to do what Noelle was doing. And I and Noelle was kind of my idol at the time.
Speaker 1:Eventually, Noelle moved on from the role of news director, and Nancy stepped into the position.
Speaker 3:I eventually became news director, and then I was was on the five year plan because of that situation in my sophomore year. And so, like, for my for my fifth year, I I wasn't news director. I didn't wanna be news director anymore, but I had already decided in my mind that I didn't wanna go into news. I wanted to make documentaries. So I was given the freedom at Impact to say, you know what?
Speaker 3:How about we do some documentaries, you know, on the weekends and, you know, just some special programming. And I I just made little short documentaries, you know, five, ten minute radio documentaries. And that is, you know, it's like what you guys would call podcasts now, but of course, that didn't exist back then. That was the first time I was able to do what ended up becoming my profession.
Speaker 1:That freedom to experiment with storytelling and journalism became the foundation for both of their careers. After graduating from Michigan State, both women entered the professional world, but their paths looked a little different. Noelle's career took an unexpected turn.
Speaker 2:I just decided to take kind of a left turn right after graduating. All you kind of hear when you come up in radio, at least I did, was like, well, you know, you gotta start with that 2AM shift in Duluth. It's just the way it is and work your way up, and I kinda didn't wanna do that. And I just I'd already been doing radio for years, and I just recognized, like, maybe my passion wasn't still what it needed to be to do that. And after working for a year at a corporate communications company, just recognized that I really wanted to do something creative.
Speaker 2:I just wanted a creative life. And I just kind of thought movies would be a lot of fun. I thought this was gonna be my my world, but it wasn't. So I just rolled the dice. Didn't know anyone.
Speaker 2:Came out here through working with different producers and creative developing creative content. Found myself in a position dropped into the kids animation world very unexpectedly. So now I work as a creative producer, a writer, and story editor for various children's programs. Been very fortunate working with all the major studios and younger scrappy production companies doing primarily preschool animated programming. But looking back, it really is the synthesis of what I've always loved, which is storytelling, stories that are important, and education.
Speaker 1:Nancy, on the other hand, spent much of her career working at the intersection of journalism and entertainment.
Speaker 3:Most of my career has been with National Geographic, making documentaries for National Geographic, and Discovery, and Upworthy, and various other platforms and stuff. Yeah. Nat Geo is I would say that there are a lot of women in leadership there, but the very highest levels are all white men. It was an interesting place back in the day. It's not like that anymore.
Speaker 3:But at the time, you know, it just was of its era. It's it's not always easy. I still feel this. Like, for most of my career, I was seen as maybe too young and inexperienced until the very moment that I was too old and overexperienced.
Speaker 1:Her work even took her to some extraordinary places.
Speaker 3:Snake Island, there were situations I remember I was the associate producer on that particular program, and it was a story that I had developed myself and pitched. I was young, and I had not. There was no question that I would be the producer. Right? But I was incredibly well prepared story wise, getting it you know, it was very dangerous.
Speaker 3:It was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life was to go to this place because it's it's this little island off the coast of Sao Paulo, Brazil that is completely uninhabited now because the only person who used to live on there was the light housekeeper. But the island most of the island is completely infested by a snake called the golden lancehead that is a relative of the fer de lance, which is responsible for most death by snake bite in South Africa or South South America. Sorry. But its its venom is five times more potent than the fer de lance. Right?
Speaker 3:And in certain parts of this island, there's like three of them per square meter. So we have to go there and make a documentary and sleep there. Right? So like I said, it was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1:Despite the different directions their careers took, both Nancy and Noel say their experiences at the station played a major role in shaping their professional lives. The station also gave them something just as important as professional experience, community.
Speaker 2:And it was just a lot of fun for as serious as it sounds like a news department would be. I just remember a lot of laughs and a lot of, you know, just adventures doing remotes and working with the sports guys. But I think, again, this theme of of finding your tribe, and I think that's what your twenties are all about, just is trying different things. And, you know, you can push back and blaze your path, but I know, like, from the scope of the entertainment industry, the world of preschool animation, there's it was more just felt like a more welcoming place for for women writers than I think you'd find in any kind of primetime writers room. I mean, everyone's heard the stories about, you know, SNL and what what it was like.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't say everyone. This is frame of reference of what it was like for the the women writers, you know, on that show back in the early days and just how brutal it was. You know, when I had a sense of that, it you know, you can only just do what you do really well and have that, you know, speak for itself. But fortunately, and, you know, through circumstance and and some conscious decision, it brought me into an area of what I do that has been more women friendly. And I just I think, unfortunately, in any really competitive field, you you know, women who have had to be, in my opinion, had to be better, had to be stronger to to advance, don't always send that ladder of support down to other women, which is something I feel really strongly about.
Speaker 2:So I've made it a point to be that person with with any new writers, but certainly just supporting other women and and sharing their success and, hopefully, cultivating some some talents in female voices that might not have been as as comfortable developing their talent with a strictly, you know, male power base. Put it that way. Yeah. And, you know, if you don't find it to work, I will say, like, when I was in high school, for whatever reason, all my friends were guys. I wasn't I didn't have, like, the group of girls that just did everything together, went to the bathroom together, did have lunch together.
Speaker 2:For whatever reason, I just I I hung out with the guys. It just seemed like less drama, and those are just my people and a lot of radio guys too. At work, just because of the nature of what I do, it's it's not I mean, I've I've worked with some really, really wonderful men and have a lot of male colleagues that I'm still close with. So I don't I don't see it as much there as just as you get older, your your female friends, how wherever you cultivate that that tribe from, they are my heart and soul and everything now, and I'm grateful for that. So whether that's at work or in your life, that support system, you just have certain experiences as a woman coming up and then as a mother that you can relate to each other in a way that is just something that only women can relate on.
Speaker 2:So if you don't happen to find that in your in your work environment, it's still you know, you that's the great thing about getting older. Certain things fall away, and you get to kinda cultivate that that tribe that's just right for you. So in that sense, I have wonderful women around me in a way that I hadn't when I was younger.
Speaker 3:We were all a bit of a a sisterhood. We we weren't necessarily the the friends that we went out with to the bars every weekend, but we knew that we needed each other. And we also were very, very different from each other. I was the nerd too, you know, and I was the nerd news person, you know, hanging out with Jenny Spirondale who was the coolest music person out there, you know, and she was my roommate. And she she you know, we tease each other.
Speaker 3:But we're we're completely different people, but we, you know, we just we all accepted each other for who we are because you're not always gonna find that everywhere you go, and it's foundational, I think.
Speaker 1:In an industry that wasn't always welcoming to women, that support mattered. Looking back now, both women say their time at Impact helped give them the confidence to take risks and pursue new opportunities.
Speaker 2:Through different jobs, wound up with a company that was known for doing Babylon five. Was a very for for you kids, it was a very long running science fiction show for with Warner Brothers. And my company, Netter Digital Entertainment, produced it for years. And I came on board to obviously, I always wanna keep other projects going so your company doesn't rest on just one show. But when that was going off the air, they did all the special effects for that in house, which is really unusual because they usually farm those off cheap to, you know, to other countries.
Speaker 2:And then but we did it all in house. So the whole first level was, like, special effects. And when that that show, which was the bread and butter of the company, was going off the air, Boss called me in and said, CGI animation. Kids, you, go, basically.
Speaker 3:I swear to god that's
Speaker 2:how they came out how it went. And, like, I didn't even watch cartoons when I was a kid. I was a dork watching, like, in search of when everyone else was watching Bugs Bunny. So I was like, what? But it was I had literally had carte blanche to throw open the doors to to that creative community to come in and pitch me, lucky me, and to go out into the the the community, the the buyers, the studios, and say, hey.
Speaker 2:What he's doing now? We look forward to bringing you some shows. And that's where I just instantly, literally, like, overnight, and people would come and sit in my office and pitch shows. And I've never laughed so hard till I cried on a daily basis with the most wonderful people. There's just a certain amount of the just the ego and the seriousness that you get.
Speaker 2:I thought I wanted to do independent film because that's what I loved. I mean, that was the before all the, you know, the Miramax Paul fell over it like there is now. But back in the day, they were making, like, the best movie. They were, like, the a '24 of, like, the early nineties. They're making the coolest movies, and I love them.
Speaker 2:But just just because you love it doesn't mean that you enjoy, like, the process of making it. I quickly learned. I it was just it just took forever. And you could just spend years developing a film, and it might not even get made, or just being on the set was just long and tedious. So this was just such a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 2:But there's a tremendous amount of ego I found in that world, tremendous amount of ego. And it just wasn't in this. These were people just who were kids at heart and and so freakingly talented and artists. And had that not happened, I can only hope that I would have found my way into this part of it. But through that executive seat, kinda developed something on the side, and then that went into production.
Speaker 2:And then I was off writing and producing, you know, for for different shows. But that's what that was the twist and turn. And it's just a matter of, you know, the old If the door opens, just walk through it. Unless there's some little voice inside you screaming, No, I hate this. This isn't for me.
Speaker 2:Walk through it and just say yes, you know? Because amazing things can happen, and you just don't know. You may have really thought you were I wanted to do what Nancy's doing. I am just so in awe. I think Nancy's just so cool, the career that you have forged.
Speaker 2:That's what I always thought I'd be doing. I was reading biographies on Jessica Savage in the fourth grade. I, like, I always thought I was gonna do, like, do news. Then I went to Washington, and I just realized I don't think this is I don't think this is right for me. I think I wanna find a way to to work creatively, and everything in Detroit was cars, cars, cars.
Speaker 2:That's not it. I don't think I can do that here because I don't really wanna do advertising. So, yeah, it's just kind of a learning process, and along the way, you're gonna be at nope. Now I like this, but I don't like this. Those bad jobs are just as helpful to you as the good ones because it's just as important, if not more so, to figure out what you not wanna do and and and who you really are because I don't think you know?
Speaker 2:And that evolves, of course, but that's when you can do your best work when it's really in line with what lights you up and what your values are, I think.
Speaker 3:I think that, you know, after leaving Michigan State and, you know, moving on to do have other experiences, I think the experience at, Impact was a learning experience for me in terms of, I guess, cultivating that tribe. So I've I've had a few other experiences. I I was thinking what other places, what other tribes do I have? I can think of four specific events or locations or times in my life, maybe five, since I left Impact where I I knew this is the tribe that you need to cultivate, and you're gonna they're gonna be that tribe for you for the rest of your life. And I was right, you know.
Speaker 3:And one thing my father always told me, you know, if if you really like someone or something, you really have to work at that relationship no matter what. You know? It's not just a love relationship. It's also a work relationship or a friendship. You still have to work at it.
Speaker 3:But I think I learned from Impact, and the fact that we were all very different, yet we still managed to have that tribe, You know, that it's important to do that, to put that work in, you know, sit in the meetings, talk to the people who are different from you, or have different focuses in their roles at the radio station than you. You know, it's just it's so it's so valuable. You know?
Speaker 2:I've just been fortunate. I I think when you find people that are doing what you do, there's already this commonality, or there's, you know, there's something that you have in common, whether it's male or female. I think, though, if you're someone that tends to or has a kind of job where you're just always doing it alone, then I think it's really important, especially in these days where I just think there's tremendous amount of isolation to never be shy about reaching out. We didn't have LinkedIn. We didn't have Zoom calls.
Speaker 2:We didn't no one was working from home. So if I would say if times are you really feeling that you want to intentionally build build that circle, there's so many ways to reach out. There's so many ways to reach out, and people are more receptive than you might think. Send someone a message on LinkedIn. Just ask someone, hey.
Speaker 2:I'm really interested in this. Do you know anyone who I could talk to? It's getting over that sense of shyness, or they're not gonna wanna you can proactively create that group for yourself in a way that was so much harder, you know, when when we were coming up. But like Nancy said, however you do it, reach out, talk to the people, find the people who are doing what you'd love to do. And hopefully, especially if it's if it's a woman that, like me, is like, yes.
Speaker 2:Come on up, and I will I will talk to you. Then I just try and get out of your head that that that's not possible because you'd be you'd just you'd be amazed. Always ask the question. Always knock on the door. You already don't know them.
Speaker 2:You already already haven't talked to them, so the worst that can happen is they they don't come through. But I think I think most people would be really amazed at how many people are willing to talk because it's so easy now. You know? And then build. Cultivate that tribe, man.
Speaker 2:Just it's your life.
Speaker 3:Oh my god. For me, my life would be completely different. If only just for the fact that, you know, I was I grew up in Suburban Detroit. I'd never been anywhere in my life before, you know, I went to college. And, you know, I met Kim Andrews there.
Speaker 3:She wasn't my closest friend, but she was in my little group. And I don't remember what Kim's job was, but she was at the Impact. It doesn't really matter. But she when she finished promotions, she did she did a a project. Well, she did one of those things where you get a work permit to go to England for six months.
Speaker 3:And then she came back and she told me about it, and I like, I wanna do that. And I did. And, you know, it was just England. I but I went by myself. It was an adventure.
Speaker 3:I found another tribe there. You know? And if I hadn't met Kim, I wouldn't have gone outside of Michigan probably in my life. I'd probably still be in Suburban Detroit working at, like, a news talk station. And but instead, I, you know, I went and had a whole career at National Geographic because I went and traveled because I was influenced by Kim, who I met at Impact.
Speaker 3:But I also went to National Geographic and made documentaries because I made documentaries first at Impact. So my life would be 100% a a different track.
Speaker 1:And even years later, the friendships and memories from the station remain just as important.
Speaker 3:I had a blast. It was fantastic. I was in a mode of, I wanna try everything. You know, while I was working at this at the radio station, I also worked at the Michigan State University Museum. That was another tribe that I had.
Speaker 3:Like I said, you know, I made the unilateral decision that I was gonna not take a full load of classes and go work for the radio station, and I just I felt like I wanted to take some risks at that time. You know, I I wasn't, like, going out and partying and doing drugs and all that, but I was I was having a great time. You know, I was meeting different kinds of people. I was experiencing so many different things, and it was just it was it was fantastic for me. I loved it.
Speaker 2:It kinda cracks me up, like, confidence I had coming out, thinking that I could just, like, launch myself across the country and like not knowing anyone and somehow be okay. I have to credit that in huge part to working at the station because you're you're functioning almost like a professional world. I mean, they call it a college station, but for all intents and purposes, you're doing the job, man, and you've been doing it for years. And it's not that different on the other side. It's just that, you know, you might might start in a more beginning position, but you're doing doing the work.
Speaker 2:So I just think that that probably gave me a bit of confidence to just launch, like Nancy said, stay in Michigan or not. Nothing wrong with staying in Michigan. I just knew that I could always come back And, if it didn't work out, I hope that everyone really remembers that. Do it now. Do that thing where you're like, oh, that would be so cool, but I could never.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can. Just do it. As long as you have someone's floor to sleep on, if you don't have, like, extra extra cash in your pocket, like, you can make it work. And if it doesn't, guess what? Go back.
Speaker 2:That's okay too. But now now is the time. And I think that I'm not sure that I would have had that that sense, and I think it just fed my, I can do this. What else can I do? Which is reason why what else can I do?
Speaker 2:Which is why I kind of, you know, made the pivot. But it also more long term, aside from just, like, making that what what I did right after graduation, I think what I got out of the station really sustained me from both learning how to write. What I love doing then most is what I love doing most now, and that's working with other writers. Working with the team for this, know, this is where we need to get, understanding the strengths of everyone around me and maximizing those, you know, for the tasks along the way. I mean, we talked about, like, the best way to tell a story, but really working with writers, working on deadlines, that has really helped me along the way in ways I didn't really realize when I was in it.
Speaker 2:There's so many of those things that you're learning, even if it's just, like Nancy was saying, just learning to work with people who are so different from you. Just God, you'd be you'd be amazed because y'all are working with each other, and you guys you guys all have your passion for radio in common, and you guys know what it is to hit a deadline, and you guys know what it is to, like when that song ends, you're on. And this is you'd be amazed to people that just basic responsibility, it's you're you're already coming out so far ahead with learning how to be responsible for for to a team and to deadlines and and all those things. But I think that that all served me. But giving me such a place from which to launch with that sense of confidence and possibility, I'm not sure I could have done it without my time at the station, wherever it had choose chosen to launch.
Speaker 3:If I hadn't had the roots of that community, what I learned there, the people who I still love. It's a brotherhood and sisterhood. I still remember the day I was sitting in the newsroom doing I don't know what I was doing. I had a typewriter. And some people were going on a, you know, a radio conference or something in Chicago, and I didn't even know that anybody there even knew my name, you know.
Speaker 3:And Gary walks in, he's like, yeah, you know, bunch of people are going bunch of students are going to this thing in Chicago, this this conference. Do you wanna go? And I literally looked behind me like, is he talking to me? And that I mean, it just it it the encouragement that that you know, the interest in, I guess, you know, developing my skills for the station, and by extension for me was life changing for me. And the, you know, the people, you know, they we became roommates.
Speaker 3:We went to each other's weddings. We've we've all it's been so many years since then, but it's just it's it was life changing. And I always thought that it was useful. And I teach now. I teach journalism students now here in DC.
Speaker 3:And, I always tell them, do this. Do that kind of thing. Do that extra thing. I tell them my story about not getting my all the classes I wanted, and how important it was to be able to make my mistakes before my job was on the line. It's it's just it's it was like gold, the this experience for me.
Speaker 1:From WLFT to WDBM to Impact eighty nine FM, the station has been a launching pad for generations of students. And for Nancy Donnelly and Noel Torres, it was the place where their careers and lifelong friendships first began. Thanks for listening to Behind the Mics. For Impact eighty nine FM, I'm Lindsay Tague.
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