“On a beach, Baby!”
By Shayna Waltower
Most everyone has career goals, aspirations and plans for what they want to accomplish over the next several years. But 20 years from now, this is the only place Lori Wilson can picture herself.
“Yeah, seriously, on a beach,” she said.
The weekday reporter and weekend anchor for Atlanta’s WSB-TV Channel 2 reclines in her chair and smiles widely while looking to the far side of fairly quiet newsroom. She draws herself back into reality after looking at the clock on her laptop and realizing that she needs to start preparing for the six o’clock show.
She stands and tugs at the slight wrinkles on her rose red dress, then gently fluffs her hair, reviving the life in her wide curls. News, television and bright outfits have been a part of her daily routine for the past twenty years, and she doesn’t seem like she’s giving it up anytime soon.
Born in Columbus, Indiana, Wilson began doing commercials when she was a young child. It was then that she unearthed her love for being in front of the camera.
“I just fell in love with the camera,” she said. “I thought it was pretty easy to perform in front of, and I found it to be very nonjudgmental.”
She interned at local TV stations and later joined a program in high school that exposed her to editing, writing, directing and producing. This is what led her to the path of news reporting. She then went to study journalism at Indiana University, where she held a number of additional internships.
After graduating college, Wilson landed her first job as a reporter in Champaign, Illinois. She worked there for eight months before obtaining an anchor position in Shreveport, Louisiana. Four years later, she moved to Atlanta, and then Philadelphia, where she was a show host and entertainment reporter for seven years. She then went to Indianapolis and circled back to Atlanta, where she has now worked for nearly a year.
Her time spent learning from and working alongside media professionals taught her the habits and skills she believes are necessary for anyone looking to be successful in news.
“Critical thinking, curiosity, being a good listener, writing and communicating, not just through the written word, but also with managers. And organization,” she laughs, “though that’s not much of my strong suit.”
But perhaps the most important skill she developed was determination.
“People doubted me. I know they did. But I knew what I wanted to do and why I was doing it. I think that’s a lot of what kept me going, so I was pretty focused and sure that if I got the chance, I’d be able to succeed in this business.”
It’s this same determination that has kept her going on days of long hours and short deadlines. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, Wilson found herself stretched between multiple tasks with their respective moving parts. The day began with a morning meeting with producers and fellow reporters to discuss story pitches, and quickly turned into a rush of interviews and assignments.
“I was filling in for the five o’clock show. I went out for my stories. Then I had to be live at 12:30. I had to get my report together and finish everything with that. And then I had to go to two other locations and still get back here [at the station] by 3:00 for hair and makeup,” she said.
But Wilson said with the more stressful days of work also come days that remind her of what she most enjoys about her job.
“There are a lot of good days,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll do a story that maybe gets a lot of social buzz or where people say, ‘Thank you for telling that story.’ Or there are just days where I feel like from beginning to end I connected on all cylinders, so not only did I tell a good story, but I presented well when live on air.”
When it comes to defining a “good story,” Wilson said the “slam-bam” reports of store robberies and shootings are not what matter, but those that hold purpose and can produce results.
“I did a series of stories with a little girl who had been shot while playing at a bouncy house, and because of those stories, she got some help from the community with the things that she really needed.”
Wilson said one of her most inspiring stories involved her speaking to a reporter who was at the Kings’ home on the night of his assassination.
“It was one of those stories where you can show the triumph of the human spirit through difficulties. Those are the things that move me, because I think those are the things that move all of us,” she said.
But those types of stories don’t appear often. When scripts and headlines are only about highway construction or gas prices, Wilson said even seemingly simple factors can make a day seem rewarding.
“A good hair day may not seem like a big deal, but it can mean a lot. And believe it or not, when you’re in an aesthetic medium, it matters,” she said.
With all of the challenges she has seen, from equipment and technical malfunctions to interviews and stories being cancelled, Wilson said she wouldn’t change where she is and the work she is doing.
“It’s rewarding,” she said. “It really is.”
Wilson lives in Smyrna with her husband of two years and her four-month-old child. In her free time, she watches Game of Thrones, the Netflix series On My Block and CNN. She also enjoys spending time with her newborn, exercising and reading before bed.
