Interview with WVEC News Anchor LaSalle Blanks

LaSalle Blanks is the WVEC 13 News Daybreak and 13 News at Noon anchor for Hampton Roads.  A native of Fairfield, Conn., Blanks graduated from Northwestern University in 1992 with a degree in radio, television and film, and he received a graduate degree in broadcast journalism in 1993.

Blanks was happy to answer a few questions for Planet Blacksburg, and he even gave a tour of the station and introduced all of the top anchors and production staff at WVEC.  What follows is a selection of questions and answers from this interview regarding his career experience and his reaction to the events of April 16.

Q: What was it like to make a guest appearance on “All My Children,” and what did you learn from it?
Blanks: It was a learning experience.  It wasn’t hard news; it was fun, but it was a learning experience.  That’s what you do in news.  You’re learning about something every single day.  You never know what you’re going to be covering.  You’re learning about the world.  You’re learning about the community in which you live, so that was a great experience.

Q: Was there a class or professor at Northwestern that best prepared you for your career?
Blanks: I don’t know what it was called, but it was a broadcast journalism sequence.  I was in the radio, television and film component in the school of speech, and that was more about the behind the scenes production.  At that time, they didn’t let any school of speech students cross over to the journalism part, but we were banging on doors.  We went to the administration and said, ‘Look, there are students here who want to do this; you can have a cross section.’  We were the first two school of speech students, myself and my friend Kimberly, who were allowed to take journalism classes there.  And to answer your question more directly, our professor was the former president of NBC News (pauses) former President of NBC News.  So what he said, LaSalle did. (laughs)  My friends were up there anchoring, and I was running the teleprompter.  He said, ‘Pull out the cord.  It happens in the business.’  I said I didn’t want them to fail, and he said, ‘Well, you’re going to fail if you don’t pull out the cord.’  That kind of stuff that he did got me ready for any potential mishap.  It taught me that you have to be ready on the fly anchoring.  It also taught me don’t over think.  The best broadcast news copy is the simplest.  Don’t do cartwheels when all you have to do is walk.

Q: Did you do an internship in college, and do you think it’s a good idea to do it before you get out of college?
Blanks: Absolutely.  The one thing you get to do in an internship is to see what the world is really like.  You get to see the reporters running around like crazy.  That live shot is at 4:59:30 a.m. Not 4:59:32.  It’s not like in college where you can be five minutes late to class.  13 News Daybreak starts at 5:00 a.m.  If I’m not out there, I don’t have a job.  One of the worst things that you have to learn in this business is to rely on your coworkers.  You need each other so much.  When one person isn’t carrying his or her weight, it can sink the whole ship.  It’s a great team effort.  As an intern you really get to see that.  There are people who are extremely competitive and driven who want to kick the competition’s ass.  Do you have that drive?  Can you measure up?  Those are all the things that you get to see and personally ask yourself, and if you think you can do this, an internship should make you even more driven than you were when you first walked in.

Q: Do you think the competition is the worst part about the job, and what is the best part about the job?
Blanks: That’s a tough question.  The best part about the job is (pauses) this is going to sound corny, but the best part about the job is the people that I work with; in particular my co-anchor Janet Roach and our morning weather guy Craig Moeller because they’re like a sister and a brother to me.             We can laugh.  We can have arguments.  We can have off camera discussions about the war in Iraq and the next moment talk about Sanjaya, and with all of that there is an element of respect.  The worst part of my job is there can sometimes be the need to try and satisfy everybody, meaning all of the viewers out there, and sometimes they can hear things the wrong way, or if there is a correction that needs to be made.  You hate to give out wrong information, but we’re only human.  You can’t please everybody.

Q: Does it get easier to cover tragedy over time? For example, with what happened at Virginia Tech, how was it to cover this story?
Blanks: It rattled us that you have to still go on the air and be a professional when you know people are depending on you for information.  You have to put your personal feelings aside; you have to be objective.  That is your goal as a journalist to tell the story and give people the information.  You may have hated what Seung-Hui Cho did, but you can’t go on the air and express that because that is not your job.  But that story, we felt for all you guys up there, and that is tough.  So does it get easier as you go along?  No.  We’re people too.  You channel it and when you have down time that’s when it gets to you.

Q: Do you have any advice with how to handle a tragic story as a reporter? After April 16, I saw such a ruthless side of the news profession, and it has made me think differently about reporters. What was your response after April 16?
Blanks: We are not all ruthless.  You have to be a good person first.  You cannot assume that just because you make a living in front of a camera and you are holding a microphone that people owe it to you to talk to you.  If you are a genuinely good person, they’ll open up to you.  If you don’t, well those are the people that give our profession the bad reputation.  I remember with Tech hearing about reporters interviewing students inside dorms.  I mean how did they get in there?  Be respectful, and you’ll have a very good career.  Being aggressive and assertive doesn’t mean you have to be ruthless.  I’m not going to sacrifice my own morals and my own values for a sound byte.

Q: What do you think is the biggest issue facing our community?
Blanks: Youth violence without a doubt because for whatever reason we have too many kids getting access to weapons or feeling like they can just act out against anybody, and they’re our future.  Youth violence involves drugs.  It involves everything that can tear apart the fabric of a community.

Q: I’ve read that you wanted to be a television announcer for the New York Yankees.  Is this something you’d like to consider doing in the future?
Blanks: I had to do it one day.  One of our sports anchors was sick and the other was on vacation.  Thank God it was all about the baseball playoffs and I knew that, and I love sports.  That’s the thing, though, if you have passion for your job, you’re going to be successful at it.

Q: So what are your plans for the future? Do you plan to stay with WVEC until you retire, or do you want to move back up north?
Blanks: (laughs) Short answer. Stay tuned…