Roma Torre

Ep. 77  Roma Torre

Roma Torre is a 2 time Emmy Award winning TV journalist and theater critic. 

She is best known for her time at New York City’s first 24 hour local news station, the much loved and revered cable news channel NY1, where she was a lead news presenter for over 28 years. She’s had an amazing career. She has received over 30 broadcasting awards including those 2 aforementioned Emmy’s, the most recent in 2019, which would obviously justify feeling like she was in the prime of her career. 

But just as NY1 (the cable news channel) was taken over by a new owner (whose focus to that point was as a broadband supplier), things seemed to be inexplicably unravelling for her and 4 other senior female journalists at NY1. They were replaced. All of them. At the same time. Over 100 years of journalistic experience that the new owner must have thought was superfluous, or outdated, or lacking in skill, or....something. 

Roma, of course, can't comment on it because of legal restrictions - but there is a lot of public information on this out there that I could comment on. It certainly intrigued me. The fact that Roma had won her second Emmy award just months earlier intrigued me. The fact that the incoming female anchors looked - to me - eerily similar to the outgoing anchors but for one interesting fact, intrigued me. The fact that they are not allowed to say anything about this for fear of legal reprisals, intrigued me. There are similarities to the conversation I had with journalist Gretchen Carlson not so long ago. But it seems things may be changing.  

We had a really interesting conversation about journalism and democracy in today's social media obsessed world. We spoke about her amazing mother, also a journalist, who owns a unique piece of journalistic history. And her love of theater - first as an actor and then as a fan and eventually, a theater critic. 

She's - rightfully - proud of the stance she took. Her mother did the same thing. An imposing combination. Have a listen. 

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