“I wore it around my neck, ” she said in the Rolonda press kit. She had kept a subway token from the trip as a souvenir, and the token became somewhat of an amulet for Watts. Part of that dream was a desire to work in New York City, a yearning that had been nurtured since a family trip to the city when she was a child. She recognized the ability of a journalist to cause change, and her dream of becoming an actress was redirected toward a career in news broadcasting. At the Columbia School of Journalism Watts discovered the immense impact of the media and was hooked. They convinced Watts to go to graduate school first before committing herself to an acting career. She wanted to become an actress, but her parents were somewhat leery of her ambition. Journalism was not the first choice of career for Watts, when she was growing up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The result is that I can take a TV talk show and make it television again, instead of just radio on television. “And I bring my experience as a journalist to the table. “First and foremost, I ’m a journalist, ” she said in the press kit for her show. When Rolonda first went on the air, Watts was one of the few talk-show hosts with a background in journalism. Rising steadily in the ranks of news broadcasting from regional reporter to anchor for nationally shown television programs, Rolonda Watts parlayed her growing reputation into the upper ranks of television stardom by becoming host of her own talk show in 1994.