Interview with Susan Bahorich
WDBJ7 Roanoke
by: Courtney West

Susan Bahorich, a news anchor and reporter for WDBJ News Channel 7 in Roanoke, broke all stereotypes of what a reporter is “supposed” to be. She is not some ruthless reporter who will do anything just to get the story.

Bahorich walked into the interview in clothing that represented her personality precisely. She was wearing jeans and a pullover jacket, casual and laid-back. She smiled at everyone who walked by and joked around with her fellow co-workers. Bahorich then sat down for an hour and a half long interview where she revealed different parts of her professional and personal life.

Q: What part of Maryland are you from?

Bahorich: “I’m from Westminster. It’s about 45 minutes outside of Baltimore.”

Q: What is Maryland like?

Bahorich: “It’s kind of flat. It’s not as mountainous as Virginia. There are obviously different parts. I’m from a part that’s very rural. … It’s 15 to 20 minutes to get to anything really.”

Q: You graduated from Towson University which is a pretty big school. Did you want to go to a big school?

Bahorich: “Well, I looked at a couple other schools, University of Maryland is 40,000 and that was just huge to me and I just thought I could meet somebody one day and never see them again. And Towson I thought was a nice size. … It’s a commuter school, a lot of people live on campus … but there’s a lot of people who do the continuing education so they don’t really have their home base there. … You wind up definitely kind of finding your way … and after a while the same people are always out and you’re like, ‘There’s nobody here at this school!’”

Q: You graduated with a degree in mass communication and a minor in English. What made you want to pursue a career in mass communication?

Bahorich: “You know it’s funny, because I guess I went through what I guess what everyone else goes through, not really knowing what I want to do, you know, gee, I’m interested in a bunch of different things, but I always told myself I never want to have a job where I was just shuffling papers every day and that I was dreading work and that it was just a paycheck. … I like doing something where I’m meeting new people and I’m talking to different people. … ”

Q: And what was it that made you want to minor in English?

Bahorich: “I’m a huge reader, I’ve always loved to read. … I love stories. … I completely lose myself in a story. … If I have a good book I can’t put it down. I will stay up until 5:30 in the morning reading.”

Q: What is your favorite book?

Bahorich: “You know what, I’d like to say that in my free time I like to read all these great classics and what not, but I love James Patterson. … My favorite classic book I guess you would say would definitely be ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. I love that book, I mean it’s something I’ve read a thousand times.”

Q: You got your start in TV while you were still in college, working behind the scenes at a local cable station. What station was it and what was the experience like?

Bahorich: “It was a cable station actually in my county, the area I’m from is called Carroll County … and it was Carroll County’s own cable station called Prestige Vision 3 or PV 3. The place looks like, from the outside it looks like a carwash. … It was kind of a cheesy internship, but it was completely hands-on because a lot of the shops in Baltimore are union shops, meaning that if you’re a photographer in a union shop, you’re the only one who can touch that camera. I wanted the chance to learn how to shoot, learn how to edit, you know, kind of get real hands-on experience. … You know, I just got to do everything there.”

Q: So overall it was a good experience?

Bahorich: “It was, it was, I mean and I’m one of those people … I believe that everything happens for a reason. Even if it’s a horrible experience, you know, as long as you learn something from it, or maybe you can, I don’t know, raise the red flag to somebody else or you know, as long as you’ve gotten something out of it, then it wasn’t a waste. Nothing’s worse to look back on a situation and say that was a complete waste of my time.”

Q: You moved to San Diego, and you were a writer and an associate producer there. What was that like?

Bahorich: “It was awesome. I wound up leaving Prestige after I wound up getting a job there after I graduated from college … and I said you know what, I’m not happy here, this place isn’t committed to news and I’m too young. I don’t have the things that make people stick to jobs. I don’t have a mortgage. I don’t have a husband … I’ll quit and I’ll wait tables. And that’s what I did, for three months I waited tables. And I moved to San Diego because my best friend from college was there. … It was amazing to work at a huge station. … I went from working at a completely unranked station, you know, a small cable outlet that just does news for one little county, to working at the number one station in the 26th market in the nation. … ”

Q: How long did you live in California?

Bahorich: “I lived there under a year. I mean, like, I was there from March and I left in January.”

Q: What was the reason for moving back to the East Coast? Was it your family and friends?

Bahorich: “You know, I wasn’t really missing the east coast. I loved the weather, I loved the people out west, but I was having a hard time finding a job on camera and I was sending things out and I had made contact with the news director in Harrisonburg and I actually had interviewed for a job when I was at Prestige and they had offered me a job. One thing they don’t tell you is that it’s a very low pay industry. … ”

Q: How far away were you from James Madison University when you lived in Harrisonburg?

Bahorich: “It’s right there. I lived in Harrisonburg for just over three years. And it was a college town. … I lived a mile off-campus when I first moved there. … ”

Q: You produced and shot your own stories there and were also a news anchor for a half-hour morning program. What was it that made you leave there?

Bahorich: “Well, Harrisonburg was a very small town and that really started to get to me because there is a very small town mentality. … Everybody my age was either married, having kids or, you know, a college student. … I was ready to go to the next step. It’s a very small market there. It was a very small town. I kind of had done everything I could do and I kind of felt like I had plateaued. …”

Q: What brought you to Roanoke?

Bahorich: “When I left Harrisonburg, I actually left and I wound up working in PR for nine months … just because I wasn’t making any money. … After a week I knew I had made a horrible decision. … And I basically spent the next nine months trying to get out of there. … When I was in Harrisonburg I had sent tapes out to the stations in this Roanoke market … and I wound up getting this job. I started in January 2004. … ”

Q: How is your relationship with your co-workers like?

Bahorich: “ … It’s like a family. You know, sometimes you may not always get along, sometimes you might butt heads, but when push comes to shove you know that so and so is going to go to battle for you. You know that you’re working as a team. You know that you’re working for, like, the greater good. … I consider myself blessed to be here. … ”

Q: You’re really into sports, especially college basketball. Do you follow professional sports at all?

Bahorich: “I do, I’m a big anything Baltimore sports fan so I love the Orioles. I actually love the Ravens. … I love sports. I love the whole concept of it that, you know, any day it just depends, you could win or lose on any day. Even the best team can fall and can completely implode and I just like the whole concept of the team working together for, like, one great goal. … ”

Q: Traveling is something you like to do in your free time. Where have you been?

Bahorich: “ .. I’ve been to Mexico. … I went to Hungary. … I went to Budapest and Romania. … I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and so I went to go visit her and I thought, you know, unless I adopt a child I’m not going to really ever be in Romania and it was like a Charles Dickens novel. I said it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I had never experienced so many emotions. … It was amazing to just see how absolutely young our country is. … ”

Q: Where would you like to travel to in the future?

Bahorich: “I would love to go to Greece. I’d love to do Italy, Rome. Greece is like definitely high on my list right now. … ”

Q: What is something that most people don’t know about you as a person and not a news anchor?

Bahorich: “You know, it’s funny because I’m not really sure what people think or whatever. … I love to laugh, I love to have a good time, I love to be around people. I don’t really like to be around negative people. … I try to have a pretty positive attitude I think because, you know, I always think that things could be completely worse and I mean, you look at the news every day and you can see how it could be completely worse. … ”