Lynne Russell - Electronic Media Article
Mark Vadnais
is copyright 1998 Crain Communications. No rights given or implied.
This article contains a few grammar and punctuation errors, but is
transcribed as it appeared.
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Lynne Rusell adds a kick to news and life
Just don’t call her a news reader
By Lee Hall
Staff Reporter
Atlanta—it’s hard to imagine that Lynne Russell could remain anchored in one
place for so long. Yet there she is, night after night, for 16 years the
primary evening anchor of CNN’s Headline News.
Her 7-to-11 p.m. (ET) shift puts her face in front of prime-time viewers on
both coasts, the only female solo anchor who can stake such a claim.
What some may consider the glamorous life of the television anchor, however,
pales by comparison to Ms. Russell’s off-camera pursuits.
She is a licensed private investigator, a sheriff’s deputy, certified open
water scuba diver, private bodyguard to visiting celebrities and a
second-degree black belt in the Korean martial art Choi Kwang Do.
On one of the several Web sites devoted to Lynne Russell, a reader asks,
“Could Lynne kick my butt?” The answer: “Almost certainly.”
Once, while practicing moves at a hotel hospitality suite, she darn near
nailed actor Bob Saget.
“He happened to walk in, and I almost kicked him in the head,” Ms. Russell
said.
No offense, Bob.
On camera, she is cool, calm and collected, her effervescence somehow rising
above a format in which the news is supposed to be the star.
“Lynne really takes her time,” said Jack Womack, executive vice president at
Headline News. “If you look at her read rate, it’s a lot slower [than other
anchors’]. She’s really trying to explain this stuff.”
She exudes quality and expects it of those around her, he said.
“It really means a lot to her that the news looks good. She’s very
particular about it, and is not afraid to speak her mind.”
Says Ms. Russell: “For a lot of people, my half-hour may be the only dose of
national and international news they get, and they choose to get it from me.
“Every journalist has a responsibility because of the access we have to
people who can hide from the public. We can go into places the public can’t,
and we can demand answers and effect change,” she said.
Viewers appreciate the rapport they seem to share.
“She cuts right through the clutter, and rises above that news clock. It
really connects with people,” said Al Primo, a fan and a man who knows
talent when he sees it. Mr Primo, now a news consultant in Old Greenwich,
Conn., authored the “Eyewitness News” format in 1968, and later hired
Geraldo Rivera and Tom Snyder.
Ms. Russell’s longevity at CNN belies a life spent in transit. The daughter
of a career army officer, Ms. Russell spent her early years traveling the
world. After graduating high school in Albuquerque, N.M., and briefly
studying nursing at the University of Colorado, she fibbed her way into the
equally itinerant world of electronic journalism.
“I needed a job, so I lied and said I could write radio copy, and before
long I was,” she laughingly says of her first job at a small radio station.
She worked in radio in Miami, before her first TV job took her to
Jacksonville, Fla., in 1978. Later stops included Boston, Honolulu and San
Antonio.
Then, in late 1982, CNN came calling.
“It was all put together so quickly,” said Ted Kavanau, who assembled the
early staff at Headline News. Mr. Kavanau, now a television consultant in
Seacaucus, N.J., remembers the wide-eyed investigative reporter from Texas
who wanted to be an anchor.
“There was no question she was something special, and obviously she would be
a star,” Mr. Kavanau recalls.
And that she is.
Viewers request her photo more than that of any other CNN anchor. Fan
letters indicate she is popular in living rooms and barrooms nationwide. The
network has no formal figures on how many people watch Headline News from
hotels or taverns, but the number is considered to be fairly substantial.
Fans and colleagues alike describe her on-air style as being warm, graceful,
and professional. One fan referred to her as “the sexist news reader on
television,” to which Ms. Russell take some offense.
“The news reader part, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe he means involved
journalist and active reporter.”
Ms. Russell doesn’t deny that sex appeal may play a role in her popularity.
She modeled—not posed, she clarifies—for a Playboy photographer. Although
the pictures have not been seen in that publication, one graces the cover of
the October 1998, issue of Jezebel, an Atlanta fashion magazine.
“I love those pictures; I think they’re wonderful,” Ms. Russell said of her
studio time with photographer Cynthia Kaye.
Playboy has asked Ms. Russell, twice, to appear in its pages. She has
politely declined.
“I really do care who sees the important parts of my body, so there wouldn’t
be any of that,” she said, adding that she has “an understanding” that the
photographs would not be published without her permission and CNN’s consent.
Though CNN has no formal policy on such extracurricular activity, she
cleared things in advance with management.
“The company is aware of Lynne’s involvement, and she acted with [CNN’s]
full knowledge and approval,” a CNN spokesman said.
Ms. Russell takes her job seriously, of course, and sees no conflict between
work and play. Her current contract with CNN is up in 2000. After that, who
knows?
“I’d love to anchor [Comedy Central’s] ‘The Daily Show,’ that would be so
much fun,’ she said. “Maybe CNN will do something like that, so you think?”
Ms. Russell continues to travel frequently, spending as much time as
possible in Paris, where she recently spent a few restful days. She’s even
made plans to spend eternity there.
“I’ve left instructions to have my ashes dropped from the top of the Eiffel
Tower,” she said in all seriousness.
“I just love the lifestyle there, and I’m beginning to resent having to jump
in the car just to get a cup of coffee," she said, adding that Paris may be
the only place in the world in which she feels totally at ease.
“There, they can sit in a park and do nothing. We don’t seem to have that
talent.”
_____________________________________________________
Mark Vadnais
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