If I were to have a conversation today with 10-year-old me, I would thank her for laying the foundation for what has truly been a nearly three-decades-long adventure masked as a career.
I often tell people that I never found journalism; journalism found me by way of a fifth-grade current events discussion and the love of writing I developed even earlier.
There I was, the MOST INTROVERTED kid you’ve ever met, navigating life in the 1980s when everything just seemed to be so loud. Arcades were loud. Fashion was loud. Shows like Miami Vice were loud. The addition of Ozzy Osbourne to my local radio station’s playlist was loud.
I found solace after school by putting pen to paper, tucked away in my room surrounded by silence. I filled notebooks with what would be classified today as handwritten YA novels, and I illustrated them with photographs I cut out of tattered issues of Seventeen. Journaling was also an outlet for the general awkwardness I felt in my youth (Who am I kidding? It’s still there today – haha). I recently revisited a 1990s era diary in which I religiously scrawled every night. It reads like a passage from Sweet Valley High with my personal naivete intertwined. These memories captured while so fresh are treasures now in my adult life.
In fifth grade, on one particular day, a Social Studies lesson included a conversation about news headlines. It occurred to me that the reason we knew what was happening in the world was the anchor who came into our homes via television each evening at 6 and 11. Talk about a huge responsibility! The more I learned about journalism, the more I wanted to make it my chosen profession. It was the culmination of everything I could ever want in a job. Help people? Share stories happening in communities? Yes and yes, and I could also write. I earned my first paychecks in radio while I was still in college. Television news followed, then hosting and producing with public relations media outreach and executive communication, essentially ghostwriting, added to the mix. I haven’t looked back. I still love this work as much as I did so many decades ago. I recognize how blessed I am.
I am new to the Board of James River Writers, and I am thoroughly enjoying this time of learning about you and where I fit in with my experiences. We have all traveled different avenues for our craft, but what is the same is our desire to use words to create snapshots in time. Telling stories, whether real or imagined, is the joy we all share.
About the Author
Amy Lacey is an Emmy award-winning journalist with nearly 30 years of television, digital, radio, and public relations experience. Amy is currently the Director of Local Programming at WTVR-TV CBS6, a role that includes co-hosting the talk and entertainment show Virginia This Morning. Amy received undergraduate degrees in journalism and psychology from Duquesne University and completed a journalism program at American University. She also earned certificates in digital marketing and leadership from the University of Richmond. Amy is a regular guest speaker and emcee in the Richmond area and serves in several volunteer leadership roles including the boards for the Public Relations Society of America-Richmond and March of Dimes-DMV chapters, the Virginia Cancer Conference marketing committee, and Fresh Start. When she isn’t working, Amy enjoys exploring new places with her favorite plus one, her almost seven-year-old daughter Rowan Kate.