Wild Transition to TV

Mary Cornatzer, the business editor of The (Raleigh) News & Observer, interviewed Gerri Willis of Fox Business Network, whose new show “The Willis Report” begins Monday.

Here is an excerpt:

On choosing business news as a career: Her first job was in a Ford town, Lima, Ohio. “They were having a heck of a time with the local economy,” she said. “I was covering local government, and I realized that couldn’t hold a candle to the economy … covering employers, job losses.”

On learning business: She covered business for the Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star in Norfolk. “I realized I was writing feature stories about businesses and business people because I didn’t understand business.” She ended up getting a fellowship to Columbia and spent a year studying macroeconomics. She credits that year with giving her the “tools to understand the businesses I was covering.” She also met her future husband there – “a fellow fellow.”

Norfolk was followed by a stint at Dow Jones covering Wall Street. From there she went to Smart Money magazine and then to CNN, where she spent seven years covering personal finance and eventually hosting the show “Your Bottom Line.”

On moving from print to TV: “It was a wild transition in some ways, but I was talking about the same material. It was just a different way to communicate. … I had no broadcast training, but I had done a ton of promotions for Smart Money on the morning shows in New York. … I got a lot of advice from people at CNN; they were very good to me there.”