markets.
But there was a cost. “I was living for my work,” Karen recalls. “That wasn’t hard, because I really did love it. I always filled in when somebody was out, always worked holidays. I worked 18 Christmases in a row! As a result, Iseldom saw my family, didn’t get married, never wanted to get that close to a man who could tie me down. And I wasn’t doing it for the money. The jobs in these small markets pay under $25,000 a year. I just loved the work.”
But there were also rewards: three regional Emmys, respect, wider exposure, more challenging opportunities. In the nineties, while working for a station in Salt Lake City, she became the first reporter in the world to be embedded with troops in Bosnia. “With the career I had built,” she says, “I hoped it would help get me closer to my dream of landing a job at one of the networks and being a full-time foreign correspondent.”
Then things began to turn. Karen joined another big-market station in Dallas. As she had done elsewhere, she volunteered to work on Christmas and was scheduled to anchor the broadcast. That’s when she got a call from her father: Karen’s beloved grandmother, long ill, had taken a turn for the worse and was near death.
“I told my supervisor that my grandmother was dying and that I needed to go,” Karen recalls. “He said that I couldn’t, that everyone else was gone. So I stayed and anchored the broadcast, and my grandmother died without my being able to say good-bye. It was then that I began to have doubts about my career. I’d already given so much to this profession, but look what I’d lost.”
But she continued working and soon moved to a station in Phoenix, where she was assigned to be embedded with an Apache helicopter unit in Afghanistan. “One day I was doing a live-shot report,” she recalls, “and a bomb exploded a couple hundred feet away. There was noise and chaos and ambulances. I was hustled into a bunker with a bunch of soldiers, and for two hours we hunkered down there while a loudspeaker kept blaring ‘This is not a drill! The base is under direct attack. Mass casualties have been reported. This is not a drill!’ ”
Karen later learned that 26 people had been killed in the explosion.“People always ask me if I had been afraid of dying. I can honestly say I wasn’t. All I could think about was ‘Have I told everyone I love that I love them? Have I done all I can to make a difference? Am I happy?’ ”
Back in Phoenix, Karen finished a documentary she’d been working on and began preparing to return to Afghanistan, a promise she had made to the troops with whom she’d been embedded. Then she received some shocking news. The station had decided not to send her back. For several days, Karen vehemently appealed the decision, but the news director was adamant. “The decision is final,” he said, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Something inside Karen had reached its breaking point.
“Yes, there is,” she answered calmly. “I quit.”
Moments later, she called her mother, who didn’t believe what she was hearing. “You quit your job?” she asked.
All at once, Karen began thinking of all the hours she had put in, the holidays she had missed, everything she had sacrificed—the husband, the kids, the life outside work.
“Not just my job, Mom,” she said. “I quit my career.”
But now she had to find something else to do. Karen remembered that when she was in the bunker, some of the soldiers got to talking about what they wanted to do when their tour was over. Visit family was a frequent answer. Take the wife to Hawaii. Take the kids to Disneyland. Karen was struck by how many of them wanted to travel, intuitively recognizing that in going somewhere new, they would be revived, restored, reinvigorated.
“For almost two decades as a reporter, I had been doing what Peter Jennings told us to do, which was to give people information that was important to their
But there was a cost. “I was living for my work,” Karen recalls. “That wasn’t hard, because I really did love it. I always filled in when somebody was out, always worked holidays. I worked 18 Christmases in a row! As a result, Iseldom saw my family, didn’t get married, never wanted to get that close to a man who could tie me down. And I wasn’t doing it for the money. The jobs in these small markets pay under $25,000 a year. I just loved the work.”
But there were also rewards: three regional Emmys, respect, wider exposure, more challenging opportunities. In the nineties, while working for a station in Salt Lake City, she became the first reporter in the world to be embedded with troops in Bosnia. “With the career I had built,” she says, “I hoped it would help get me closer to my dream of landing a job at one of the networks and being a full-time foreign correspondent.”
Then things began to turn. Karen joined another big-market station in Dallas. As she had done elsewhere, she volunteered to work on Christmas and was scheduled to anchor the broadcast. That’s when she got a call from her father: Karen’s beloved grandmother, long ill, had taken a turn for the worse and was near death.
“I told my supervisor that my grandmother was dying and that I needed to go,” Karen recalls. “He said that I couldn’t, that everyone else was gone. So I stayed and anchored the broadcast, and my grandmother died without my being able to say good-bye. It was then that I began to have doubts about my career. I’d already given so much to this profession, but look what I’d lost.”
But she continued working and soon moved to a station in Phoenix, where she was assigned to be embedded with an Apache helicopter unit in Afghanistan. “One day I was doing a live-shot report,” she recalls, “and a bomb exploded a couple hundred feet away. There was noise and chaos and ambulances. I was hustled into a bunker with a bunch of soldiers, and for two hours we hunkered down there while a loudspeaker kept blaring ‘This is not a drill! The base is under direct attack. Mass casualties have been reported. This is not a drill!’ ”
Karen later learned that 26 people had been killed in the explosion.“People always ask me if I had been afraid of dying. I can honestly say I wasn’t. All I could think about was ‘Have I told everyone I love that I love them? Have I done all I can to make a difference? Am I happy?’ ”
Back in Phoenix, Karen finished a documentary she’d been working on and began preparing to return to Afghanistan, a promise she had made to the troops with whom she’d been embedded. Then she received some shocking news. The station had decided not to send her back. For several days, Karen vehemently appealed the decision, but the news director was adamant. “The decision is final,” he said, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Something inside Karen had reached its breaking point.
“Yes, there is,” she answered calmly. “I quit.”
Moments later, she called her mother, who didn’t believe what she was hearing. “You quit your job?” she asked.
All at once, Karen began thinking of all the hours she had put in, the holidays she had missed, everything she had sacrificed—the husband, the kids, the life outside work.
“Not just my job, Mom,” she said. “I quit my career.”
But now she had to find something else to do. Karen remembered that when she was in the bunker, some of the soldiers got to talking about what they wanted to do when their tour was over. Visit family was a frequent answer. Take the wife to Hawaii. Take the kids to Disneyland. Karen was struck by how many of them wanted to travel, intuitively recognizing that in going somewhere new, they would be revived, restored, reinvigorated.
“For almost two decades as a reporter, I had been doing what Peter Jennings told us to do, which was to give people information that was important to their
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