Lessons from the Prairie by Melissa Francis

Author:Melissa Francis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weinstein Publishing
Published: 2017-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

A decade later, long after Little House, as well as way too many more boom-and-bust cycles, I began to apply to colleges. I had a clear picture of what I wanted: security. But that didn’t mean boredom. Hollywood had ruined me for regular life. I was looking for something with a little pizzazz. But even more than that, I wanted a steady paycheck with my name printed right on the front. There’s tremendous power in having someone hand you money for a job well done. A rush. A sense of independence, knowing you can create your own security without anyone else, a way to ease your own worry.

All this led me to news. A job in front of the camera, where I controlled the content, used my brain, wrote the words I would say, could be inquisitive and creative, but perhaps have a long, steady career where I didn’t need to pray for my show to be renewed each year, if I was ever even lucky enough to get another series. This career path seemed to check all the boxes. And of course that desirability and demand meant loads of people wanted to break in.

To get started in news, you sort of have to know someone, someone who can help you get a foot in the door, get your résumé pulled from the massive pile that comes flooding into the decision maker even when there’s no opening and no decision to be made. Sadly, I didn’t know a soul. Not a field producer, not a security guard, not a janitor. So I realized in order to network and meet people whom I could convince I was a good risk, I needed to work as an intern. Work for free. Nooooo! But alas I had no choice. That started with doing the internship with Carol Breshears at Fox in LA. But that was only the beginning. I was going to need to meet many more people before I could actually land that first (golden yet minimum wage) job. This is one of the reasons that you hear so many beauty queens say they want to “read the news on TV” after pageant life and then you never see or hear from them again. The drudgery of breaking into the business and landing a paying job is tough as hell.

As if that weren’t enough, I had another huge obstacle to test just how badly I wanted this career. The year after I worked for Carol, I landed another unpaid job working for the NBC News bureau in Washington, DC. Sure, this was a plumb gig: I could prove desire and maybe smarts to a slew of people who knew and influenced news directors in affiliates around the country in small markets where someone might actually pay me (very little) money. But the idea did not exactly sit well with my mother. The last thing on the planet she wanted was for me to make a life away from acting and away from her.

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