Carrie Lee ’89 Reports Business News for CNN

The career of a TV newswoman may sound glamorous, but don’t tell that to Carrie Lee ’89 as she yawns awake at 4:45 a.m., gropes in the dark for the right suit, and takes a buffing from makeup artists with her morning paper.

A business reporter for CNN Headline News, Lee views her job in terms of competence and hard work, not celebrity and beauty. For her, recognition by strangers and a designer wardrobe are unimportant perks.

“Television requires more stamina than I could ever have imagined,” says Lee, who reports throughout the morning in live “hits” of business news from the NASDAQ exchange in midtown Manhattan. “It’s certainly not about being pampered, even though it might seem that way, but rather hitting it hard, giving it your all every day, whether or not you’re exhausted, not feeling well, or if the stories of the day are uninspiring.”

Shedding light for viewers with short but compelling and accurate explanations of complicated business issues, and perhaps rounding up a guest to provide further dimension, makes her day.

“We try to find interesting ways to tell the story, try to be creative, adding in historical facts or statistics, and not just say, for example, that the war with Iraq is weighing on stocks,” says the Easton native and economics and business graduate. “We go the extra step.”

A writer who found the teaching of Suzanne Westfall, professor of English, inspirational, Lee received a master’s in magazine journalism from New York University. Though she saw herself as “more of a print person—you know, the pen, paper, your brain, and the truth,” she fell into television as sort of a fluke.

After working as an editorial assistant at The New York Times and as a writer for two financial magazines, she was invited on TV as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal online edition.

“I liked it,” says Lee. “But it took me at least a year to feel comfortable.” Initially turned off by the simplicity of television, she came to realize that making a story interesting required as much skill as print journalism.

A Day That Starts at 5 a.m.

If it looks like TV news is all work, however, Lee says she does enjoy meeting celebrities like Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Fallon of Saturday Night Live, who rang the NASDAQ opening bell one day. “I did a report beforehand, and when I was finished, he and he alone started clapping wildly! Very sweet!” she recalls.

Each morning after a cab drops Lee off at CNN from her Brooklyn apartment, it’s straight to makeup. There, as staff craft her already fine appearance to suit the studio lighting, she watches the news and reads newspapers with hair standing on end. Combed into shape, it’s then on to NASDAQ in Times Square.

“A producer helps me with the first hit at 7:06 a.m., then together we plan the day,” Lee says. “It’s economic and consumer news, not insider stock play-by-play. We do important news, but stick to things people have heard of. It’s for the average Joe.”

Although she goes to sleep at a 9:30 or 10 p.m., newly married Lee has her work cut out for her just meeting up with her husband, Robert Charles Nowell Jr., a medical sales consultant with an even crazier schedule.

Lee recently tried her hand as a CNN weekend anchor in Atlanta, and also sees gaining expertise in certain areas of financial news as a career goal. On the other hand, asked if she’d like to be Katie Couric, “it would be setting myself up for a dream not fulfilled,” she replies.

Viewing the TV world with a clear eye, Lee sees it as a mercurial place where, despite one’s competence, the revamping of a show format might short-circuit a career. It also has its prima donnas, but Lee tries to avoid “having an issue” with anyone.

Lee herself is under contract with CNN, something that nowadays seems more normal than it used to.

“At the end, you get renewed or you don’t, or someone else picks you up, like in sports,” Lee says matter-of-factly, as she does about the need to dress the part, get her hair trimmed before it really needs cutting, and experiment with fashion designs and colors to discover what works on TV.

In many ways, she thinks of her work as similar to an actor’s, for whom the show must go on.

“I would say, though, that when things all come together well, I feel great!” Lee comments. “It’s always a group effort: me in front of the camera, my producer making sure the graphics and video are in place, the lighting and sound team, and most important, the stories. When all these elements come together and create a solid, interesting, and visually appealing segment, that is certainly something to be proud of. That’s what it’s all about.”