Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 151

Do You Small Ads Like This? day I could experiment and do some cassettes, motivational material, that kind of thing, because that keeps you on the positive side. And, with all the negative things going, we need something positive." TThai is the element that makes one ff person a successful communicator on television and the next person a failure? Baughns comments, "It doesn't have so much to do with your competence as it does with how the public perceives you. You can be a hit in New York and a flop in Hartford and you're still at the same level of competence. It's how that viewing audience accepts you. You can never really predict it.

It's crazy. It also has to do with the team you're working with. Some people are able to elicit different elements of a person's personality. In another setting, it's difficult. For me, it's worked cere." "When I first came here," she remembers, "I wore a very short Afro.

In Albany, I didn't care. I didn't know anything about the business, so it didn't make any difference. Here, it was perceived as a political statement and people were very Of course, the station wasn't about to tell me, because the Post (Channel 3 is owned by Post-Newsweek) doesn't take positions on that. But, you have to have a sense of what yourcommunityis like." Discussing her own acceptance by the viewers, she remarks, "There are some people who like me who are black, and some who don't like me who are black, as it is within the white community. We still get racist mail, even though it's 1980.

It amazes me. But, that's the way things are. There was one person who wrote, when Pat Sheehan (former anchorman at Channel 3, now with Channel 8 in New Haven) left, saying, 'You finally got rid of him. You hated and I had nothing to do with it. Hey, all I did was work here.

But, I've just recently gotten to the point where I accept that you can't please everybody, no matter what you do. All you can do is be the best you can. They tell me people watch, in pari, because of me. Well, that's fine. If they didn't, I wouldn't be here and it has nothing to do with black, white or affirmative action.

They'd find somebody else who would fill the bill." She is amazed by the interest viewers take in her as a human being, not just as a newscaster. With a note of surprise in her voice, she says, "They take it personally if you're not there at night. Or they want to know, 'Why wasn't she looking that good Maybe she doesn't feel good' or 'She's frowning a lot I get calls like that occasionally. It's kind of nice to know that, but then you get a little nervous, too, saying, 'Gee, I don't want to mean THAT much to When you realize that people elect to turn you on and bring you into their homes, that says a lot. That's like an open door.

You have to appreciate their willingness and the fact you've been granted that entrance." low and receive a full refund. There is a limit of one (1) pair of diamond ear-' rings per address, but if your request is made before March 2, you may request a second pair by enclosing aa additional $5 plus SI shipping and handling. No request will be accepted past the dates noted above; your uncashed check will be returned if postmarked later than those dates Please enclose this original notice with your request; photocopies will not be -accepted. Send appropriate sum together with your name and address to: ABERNATHY CLOSTHER, Diamond Earring Advertising Program, Dept. 607-32, Box 1310, Westbury, New York 11590.

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