Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 10, 1990 TAG: 9003102497
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: chuck milteer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Putting goop on my face every day, for onething," she said. "And this is not one of the most important things, but whenever you go [clothes] shop- ping you have to think about everything you buy in terms of how will this look on television."
Jackson, the anchor of WDBJ's 11 p.m. newscast for the past 2 1/2 years, bid farewell to Roanoke with last night's newscast. Today she planned to complete her move to Raleigh, N.C.
Next week, she and David Stephenson, a former WDBJ staffer who now works for WRAL-TV in Raleigh, will get married.
A couple of weeks after the wedding, Jackson will also start work for WRAL as a documentary producer.
It's a job that will be primarily off-camera - quite a switch for someone who has been visiting Southwest and Central Virginia living rooms for more than 7 1/2 years as part of WDBJ's news staff.
"In many ways it will be really good to not be in front of the camera every day, but I'm sure there are some things I'll miss about it," Jackson said.
Her new job will allow her to spend more time gathering and presenting information to viewers, something she has wanted to do for a long time.
On a daily newscast, "you have all this wonderful information, but you can only give the viewer a 90 seconds' worth. . . . That's been one of my greatest frustrations."
Jackson, a Boston native, grew up in Maine and finished high school in Washington.
Her television career began with an internship while she was a student at George Washington University in Washington.
After graduating, Jackson's first job was working for the university's medical school, filming operations and making videotaped mini-documentaries for the school.
That led to a position at Washington NBC-affiliated station WRC as a production assistant and associate producer. From there, she felt the lure of TV news.
"I liked the energy of the newsroom," she said. "I liked the daily deadlines."
That, coupled with a well-developed curosity, helped her decide she wanted to be a reporter.
"I don't know what made me think about getting in front of the camera, except that I guess I felt like I wanted to run the show more," she said. "I wanted to go and gather the information. It wasn't so much that I wanted to be on TV, than that I wanted to be the one to get the story."
But fledgling television reporters do not start out in Washington - so a job search landed Jackson an entry-level position on the news staff of Roanoke's NBC station, WSLS (Channel 10).
There she did everything from running the TelePrompTer for news broadcasts to reporting on stories to anchoring a brief late-night news segment.
She stayed with the station just six months before heading to New York for a year of graduate school at Columbia University. But her work in Roanoke helped her get a job at WDBJ when she finished.
At Channel 7, Jackson worked as a reporter and weekend anchor before taking over the 11 p.m. anchor desk upon the departure of Becky Riddle 2 1/2 years ago.
Anchoring the news has put Jackson, who describes herself as a very private person, in the public spotlight fairly constantly since. The attention has its down side.
"It's very, very nice when people come up to and say, `We watch you on television and we think you do a great job,' " she said. "Without the viewers, I wouldn't have had a job. But it also takes a certain amount of constant energy. It will be nice to go to the grocery store and not have to worry about what somebody thinks about what I'm wearing."
Jackson says her visibility also set her up for the most difficult moment of her professional life.
She was a member of the jury that convicted Norton lawyer Carl McAfee on federal drug and money laundering charges in April 1988. After the trial, McAfee's lawyers argued that his client had been denied a fair trial because Jackson was biased. They based the claim on the fact that, two years before the trial, Jackson had briefly dated a federal prosecutor who was not involved in the case.
The federal judge denied the request for a retrial, but not before Lyn Jackson, newscaster, became Lyn Jackson, news item.
"One of the things that bothered me most about it was the question of my integrity," Jackson said. "As a newsperson, one of the most important things I have is my integrity and my ability to be objective and forthright and honest."
Jackson said that she felt like she was used by McAfee's attorneys. Though she understands why they did it, it offended her "because of what it says to other potential jurors." And, she added, the episode obviously "was an uncomfortable invasion of privacy."
Still, it provided Jackson with some valuable insight. "One of the things it taught me was just how careful we all have to be as reporters," she said. "It's all too easy to forget that we're dealing with people's lives."
But as far as Jackson is concerned, that chapter is over. Recently, she's been concentrating on much more enjoyable pursuits.
Like arranging a wedding.
"My phone bill has been astronomical, because I've had to arrange things over the phone," Jackson said. "Everything has gone remarkably smoothly."
by CNB