The Arizona Republic
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The Arizona Republic
www.azcentral.com
'I did every side of the business': How cross training shaped ABC 15's Katie Raml's career
Katie Raml recently celebrated her 20th anniversary at ABC 15 in Phoenix, where she’s a news anchor.
That’s a big milestone, particularly in the itinerant world of local TV news. But Raml will have you know she’s actually worked at the station longer than that.
Before she worked in the ABC 15 newsroom, Raml worked at the station in promotions.
“It was great,” Raml said. “I got to know everybody that way and then left and started my on-air career. So then to come back, it was just such a crazy transition, to be like, ‘Well now I work on this side of the building and I’m trying this life out over here.’”
Life on this side of the building has worked out, clearly.
Working in a Houston's restaurant had a big impact on Raml
But checking out life on both sides of the camera — Raml also worked in sales in South Dakota and ran cameras at a church in Phoenix — gave her perspective.“I did every side of the business so that I could really understand it before I moved into the newsroom,” she said, “before I decided that was the for-sure spot where I wanted to land.”
Raml grew up in Arizona and graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. The school inducted her into its alumni hall of fame in 2005.
But she learned the lesson about exploring all sides of a business in a less-obvious place: Houston’s, a restaurant where she worked in college.
“One of the things they did was they made everybody work every position in the building in order to go into management,” Raml said. “I just thought that was such a good idea, because you had empathy for every job in the building. So I kind of wanted to know everything about TV.”
In the course of a conversation, Raml brought up the experience several times and said she may insist that her three children work in retail and food service. Clearly, it made a lasting impact.
For instance, she advocates cross-training later in careers to maintain perspective.
Why Raml has stayed in Phoenix: 'I don't love moving.'
“I think it’s important for managers to go out with reporters,” Raml said. “I think it’s important for the assignment desk to go out with photographers that they’re making run all over town. I think it’s important to know what everybody’s dealing with every day.”Raml has been dealing with the Valley every day. Of course, she has contemplated moves — TV news careers tend to be a march from bigger market to bigger market — but not much, it sounds like.
For one thing, “I don’t love moving,” she said, laughing. But there’s more.
“I think from the beginning I’ve always valued a well-rounded life,” Raml said. “When I look at some of the national jobs — when I considered jobs in bigger cities — the quality of life for me was not reflected there. I mean a big drive is my entire family is here, and there’s something to be said for staying in the same place and having a commitment to that community.”
Bigger jobs, bigger markets — the bottom line is, those mean bigger money. But that wasn’t a motivating factor for Raml either, she said.
“I mean yeah, you could go somewhere and probably make more money, but is that the goal at the end of the day, just how much cash you can get in the bank at the end of the day? I don’t think so, and I’ve never thought that. So that’s not going to be a draw for me to chase jobs all over the country.”
Raml is married to former major-league baseball player Augie Ojeda, whose career included a stint with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The two of them held off on starting a family until both their careers were in a place where they could spend time at home.
“You look at some of the correspondents, and they’re on the road how many days a month?” She said. “You’re missing those little moments, and I knew that I wanted to be a mom and wanted to be there for those experiences. I didn’t want to miss out on things because I wasn’t home.”
Anchoring the news in one place for so long — and in her hometown — gives Raml the vantage point of someone who’s seen a lot of things, so surprises are less likely.
“I think when you’ve been in a community for a long time, you start to know the long history of the city and its changes and the leaders,” she said. “That leads to a smaller chance of mistakes because you’ve studied the market for 20 years, or fill in the blank, however many years you’ve been there.”
That, in turn, informs coverage.
'I've never felt such a sense of duty'
“I think you’re quicker to spot trends when you’re seeing stuff bubble up more and more often,” Raml said. “You can say hey wait, let’s pull the actual numbers on this and see if this is happening more often than last year, or before the pandemic.”Ah, that. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaped our lives in so many ways, and Raml is no different. She’s seen a lot of changes in news and how it’s covered. But the pandemic was a big one.
“We’ve added a lot of stories of hope into our newscast,” she said. “We just went through a pandemic. It was awful. And people are looking for some of those stories.”
Audiences have shifted, Raml said. They’re looking for different things — not just breaking stories, but more.
“If we’re doing our job correctly we’re making your life easier,” she said. “We’re making your neighborhoods and schools safer. We’re alerting you to trends that are happening in the Valley. I feel a strong sense of duty, especially after the pandemic. The height of the pandemic was terrible. But I’ve never felt such a sense of duty.”
Viewers weren’t the only ones in need of some hope. The responsibility she felt was important to Raml, as well.
“That sense of duty through that whole year, honestly I think is what kept me going. Because there were a lot of times when what you’re seeing now with the ‘great resignation,’ there were a lot of times where you were just like, ‘I could just give up. This is too hard. This is wildly stressful.’”
Raml says she still loves what she does — the writing, the meeting interesting people, satisfying her curiosity, all of it. So does she have 20 more years in the anchor chair in her?
“I don’t know if I have 20 more,” she said, laughing. “I plan to be here a while. I feel like I have deep responsibilities to two different areas of my life, my family and then my work in the community. As long as those two groups can play well together and work well and I can cover the demands of both, I’ll do both.”
