By By Mike Manzoni, Staff Writer
Emmy Award-winning journalist Carolyn Gusoff spoke to a small group of students at Dempster Hall last night, sharing stories from her more than two decades in the television news business and stressing the importance of writing to the crowd of aspiring reporters.
A veteran New York reporter, Gusoff, now freelancing for WNYW-TV Channel 5, said she didn't grow up wanting to be like anybody, though she did admire Barbara Walters. "It was less what I wanted to grow up to be and more about what I wanted to grow up to do," she said. "I became attracted to the craft more than to any particular person."
Gusoff said it was the unique dichotomy of broadcast news that attracted her. "Television news captures the writing part of being creative and the visual part of being creative," she said, adding that she always enjoyed both writing and film.
After graduating from Columbia University's graduate journalism program, Gusoff looked for jobs down South. After she said she was laughed at for her inexperience in Miami, she landed a job at WNFM-TV in Fort Myers, Fla., in 1985. After a few years, she came back to New York where she took a job at start-up cable station News 12 Long Island before moving to WNBC-TV Channel 4.
Before starting her career in television, Gusoff spent time on Capitol Hill where she interned for then-Senator Joe Biden while she was a junior at Cornell University. "I learned then that he [Joe Biden] was smart and really a very level-headed, reasonable, brilliant man."
Though she said television news can be exciting, she spoke about the challenges of the industry, such as covering tragedies.
Gusoff covered the 1993 Long Island Rail Road train massacre in which Colin Ferguson killed six people on the Merillon Avenue Station. "You're on the air before you can even size up the situation," she recalled. "Your emotions begin to kick in and you realize what you're dealing with." But she did note the good that can come from tragedy, saying it makes you appreciate life more.
Gusoff also covered crash of TWA Flight 800 and reported outside in the snow for 36 continuous hours as the Blizzard of 1996 ravaged Long Island.
Asked by students for advice about the television news business, Gusoff said it is a writing job and urged the importance of being a good writer.
In December 2008, Gusoff was laid off from WNBC-TV Channel 4 where she anchored "Weekend Today in New York," and worked as a reporter for 15 years. "I never thought it would happen to me," she said.
Nominated for a New York Emmy Award eight times, she won one for her coverage of the 2004 Mepham Hazing Scandal.
Photo courtesy of Carolyngusoff.com (Photo courtesy of Carolyngusoff.com)