Lesley Norman ’79 on ‘Women, Power, and Politics’

Lesley Norman is executive in charge of NOW, and vice president and chief operating officer of JumpStart Productions, which produces the Emmy Award-winning show. While at WGBH in Boston, she worked on NOVA productions and managed the Peabody Award-wining series Africans in America; her additional PBS credits include the Emmy Award-winning Secret Life of the Brain and another Peabody Award-winner, Napoleon. She has also worked on productions for the Discovery Channel, CNBC, and CNN.

Most people would guess that a producer is a cross between Nathan Lane in The Producers and Tina Fey in that American Express commercial. What does a producer do? And what is an “executive in charge”?
Generally speaking, the documentary world and the feature film world have different descriptions for producer, so I’ll stick with documentaries. The producer supervises the team, writes the script, directs the shoots in the field, supervises the editor, and oversees postproduction. It is a combination of management, and editorial/creative responsibilities. My job as executive in charge here is to make sure the production is running smoothly—and that includes everything from human resources, to legal review, overseeing production and administrative staff, working with our funders, and screening the show every week. My COO hat means I take care of the company business—overseeing the budgets and accounting, contracts, new business development, our new media effort.

Can you name some of the shows you’re most proud of?
I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career, and have worked on many amazing shows. I loved working on BreakThrough for Blackside—it was a very important series (looking at minorities in the American sciences) and it was a blast as well. My time at NOVA will always be near and dear to me, as it is really where I got my start, and I have friends there to this day. I am extremely proud of the film I senior-produced for NOW, called Child Brides: Stolen Lives. It is an examination of the practice of child marriage, which is still a prevalent custom in many countries.

What draws you to socially relevant programming? When did you know this would be your field?
I’ve always felt that journalism should shine a light on both the good, and the bad in this world—that we have a responsibility to tell the truth, not our opinion of the truth. Corruption should be exposed, and heroes should be acknowledged. I always liked to write, and when I was pondering my life and career after I was out of college for a few years, I kept coming back to journalism. It had everything I wanted—writing, action, relevance. Plus, I’m somewhat of a news junkie, although not as much as I used to be.

Where do the stories that you produce come from? Staffers, hot tips, careful current reading of many news sources, ideas over the transom?
All of the above. Our creative head, executive producer John Siceloff, has a million ideas. He has a running story list, but also encourages input from our production teams. If a production team comes up with a viable relevant story, it is their’s to produce. David Brancaccio and Maria Hinojosa, our host and senior correspondent, also have strong and varied interests, and they are always proposing stories they want to work on.

Sounds like there are more story ideas out there than you can ever get to! If so, how do you decide which ones to do?  
We are never at a loss for a story—we usually have more ideas than we can produce. So we look at many factors—newsworthiness, relevance, interest, and practical matters such as timing and budget.

How many shows a year do you produce, or oversee?
NOW is on every week, and we only repeat at Christmas and New Year’s, so we produce 50 shows a year. Our production cycle is between eight and 10 weeks, depending on the story. We have five production teams, so we are always working on something.  

What drew you to the particular nexis of women, power, and politics in the film you will show at Skidmore?  
This special one-hour film was really Maria Hinojosa’s project. She felt, in the election year, that the timing and topic were critical and relevant. In my role as executive in charge here, I oversaw aspects of the production and management of the show. And clearly, given my background (I was a government major at Skidmore) and gender, it was of great personal interest to me as well.

Were there Skidmore faculty especially memorable to you during your campus years, and/or helpful in finding your own particular way?
My favorite professor was Erwin Levine. He was a truly extraordinary man, and I feel so lucky that I had him as a professor, and as an advisor while I was at Skidmore. He challenged me and mentored me, pushed me to do my best, and really helped me find my way. He taught me critical thinking, discipline, and inspired some passion in me.

Is it easy to break into TV journalism because it’s a big field, or do you have to work every network and contact to get a toehold?
I think we are in an interesting time in media. When I got started, cable was a young industry and there were not nearly as many channels, or news shows, as there are now. I guess that is the good news, if you are interested in television journalism—there are more shows and more options. The challenge is that media in general are migrating away from traditional TV viewership, on to other platforms such as the Internet, hand-held devices, etc. I also think that in this particular economic downturn, funders (for public media) and corporations (who buy the advertising that supports commercial entities) are spending less, so there are smaller budgets, and therefore fewer jobs. I think that anyone trying to break into the business now needs to have a varied skill set—shooting and editing technologies have changed so much that they are widely accessible, so in addition to good storytelling and directing skills, anyone who can also shoot and edit may have a better chance of breaking into this work.

Which TV shows do you watch for fun? (Do you enjoy any network-TV “guilty pleasures” such as Lost or The Sopranos?)
I’m all about guilty pleasures when it comes to actually watching TV. Because I spend my life working in nonfiction, I tend to watch more fiction at home. I don’t watch a lot of TV, and steer clear of reality shows—I just don’t get into them, so they’re not my guilty pleasure. But I am dedicated to Grey's Anatomy, CSI Miami, and NCIS. And I've seen every episode of Sex and the City more times than I can count.~Interview by Barbara Melville, Office of Communications