Chris Licht
Taking Risks and Making Mistakes
July 19, 2006 | by brett | Permalink
Growing up, Chris always knew that he wanted to work in the news business, despite both of his parents being doctors. At a young age he dreamed of being a reporter on camera and before he graduated college he got his first taste of the business through an internship at NBC for the Today Show.
He graduated from Syracuse University with a broadcast journalism degree and a minor in political science and without knowing any better, took a really bad job offer in Allentown, PA. The company’s focus was to produce medical reports and send them out to stations all over the country. His starting wage was $19,200, and the only reason why he remembers it is because he negotiated the extra $200. He learned a lot but was absolutely miserable in Allentown, a city with a population of 100,000 and nothing to do.
After just over a year with the company Chris signed a new contract, offering him more money. Soon thereafter, someone whom Chris had interned for at the Today Show, called him. He told Chris that he was starting a production company in Los Angeles and offered him work under the condition that he was willing to work for free. Chris couldn’t resist the opportunity to get out of a job he didn’t like, in a town he couldn’t stand. He decided to break his contract and make the move West. One lawsuit and unaccepted settlement later, Chris found himself driving across the country to work for a production company, in a city of strangers, for nothing.
Chris considered it a good move in retrospect. He got out of a job that he was unhappy with and out of a city that was not suited for him. One thing we’ve found on the trip is that your job and the city you work in are two major determinants to whether people are happy with themselves. Most people would envy what Chris did. It all ties back into his philosophy of making your mistakes before you’re 30, and then worrying about a career.
He worked for two months for no pay with the company doing various production duties. He then got a job producing a news pilot show with KNBC in LA. After that, he fell into an opportunity to work on a daily show covering the O.J. Simpson trial, in which he even got to sit in the courtroom. His original dream of being an on-air reporter began to fade replaced by seeing what he could do with this production thing. He realized that he liked what he was doing even though it wasn’t his intentional direction.
He has been with NBC since then , working his way up the company the whole time. He opted to live and work in San Francisco for KNTV Channel 11 for two and a half years but is now is the senior producer for Scarborough Country airing on MSNBC.
Chris’s road is unique because if you want to get into the news industry, schools teach you to start in small to middle markets and bounce around until you land a job in either Los Angeles or New York. But Chris did the exact opposite by choosing to just move straight to L.A.. As a result of his hard work behind the scenes he was able to make some good contacts and move up the ladder as opportunities arose. On the other hand, if you are in a really small market then chances are you are not making the right contacts that will get you to the top. “You’re not going to get the right job by looking in the Times everyday, it’s all about utilizing your contacts and making those contacts.”
Something to also keep in mind for people looking for a job relates to a lesson Chris learned that college did not teach him. Chris says that the ability to get hired depends on the kind of person you are. This is always something to think about before you go into an interview. You have to picture yourself in their culture, and see if you can be a piece to their puzzle. Here was Chris’s input on the topic:
“The qualifications matter, but at the end of the day from the hiring end you have to ask yourself “Do I want to hang out with this person, do I want this person in my office every day?” You also should have energy and confidence. If I can throw any type of project at one of my interns and they can handle it with a good attitude and confidently, then I’ll throw something else at them. If they consistently display a good work ethic towards these projects, that’s when a job opens up.”
When asked about a typical work day, Chris said that he usually starts emailing his boss around 9 am, goes to work at 12, and produces the show at 9pm. He is there late at night, and his advice to anyone interested in getting into the industry is to get used to a minimum ten hour day and don’t expect to get paid extra for it.
“One thing that is common with students just coming out of school is that they want everything now. The problem is that they have not made mistakes yet and learned from those failures. The key to making mistakes is making them on a level that won’t kill your career. The danger with wanting everything now and getting everything now is that you are put in a high profile position where it will hurt you if you make a mistake. You grow and learn from making mistakes and they will happen.”
The above advice is something that has been frequently mentioned to us on the trip. Especially because I am planning on writing a book, even though I have no experience whatsoever with creative writing. I am told that it takes time to develop writing skills and if you produce a book that is successful then you are immediately put in an position where you are expected to write fantastic pieces, despite your writing skills having not been developed yet. The same is true of students going into any profession, you have to be patient. You can’t think that you can run the company better than the CEO because you have to learn from the mistakes that you haven’t made yet.
Some more advice that Chris had to give students was that:
“The biggest thing that is missing in my industry is people that know how to write. I don’t think it matters what career you’re in, but you have to know how to communicate through the way you write. If you are a good, fast, eloquent writer, it will open up a lot of doors.”
“Look and see what everyone is doing that have gone to where you want to go, and do something completely different. If you look at people that have made it, very few of them have stuck by the book. They’ve kind of gone on the path less traveled, and as long as you have that drive, that passion, you eventually will get to where you want to go.”
His favorite part about working at MSNBC was that:
“No two days are the same. I’ve worked at three Olympics (Sydney, Athens, and Salt Lake), and Athens is actually where I fell in love with my wife (just married this year). I’ve gone to Super Bowls (and) World Series because NBC has their hands in so many different things. I’ve got to start up a TV Station (and) build the newsroom. I also went into the locker room of the winner of the World Series.”
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Brett Farmiloe Says:
April 6th, 2007
I am happy to report that Chris Licht is now executive director of Scarborough Country after a great promotion!
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