Name: Maria Imelda Perez
Age: 22
Hometown: Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and raised in Mission
Degree: Bachelor in broadcast journalism with a minor in Spanish
Graduated: 2016
Current job: Fox News and Univision weather anchor and entertainment reporter
How would you describe your college years? “Very fun. Very time consuming. I would always work in teams, and that’s something I’m still doing now. It was very important and I really enjoyed it. Very interesting.”
What were your favorite things to do while in college? “Eat. Starbucks. Just hanging out with friends. I was learning about the TV industry, so most of my time was just studying and in the communications building with Mr. [Fred] Mann, [whom] I love to death.”
What do you miss most about college? “I think my classmates. I miss hanging out with them and studying together and I miss my professors. But, more than anything, I miss Mr. Mann because he was my mentor. He guided me and gave me a lot of good advice, which I use now that I’m working here.”
What motivated you to pursue your degree? “Well, I always liked TV. Ever since I was a little girl, I would watch the news anchors and I kind of wanted to do that when I grew up. When I was in high school I actually took a different degree and graduated as a patient care assistant, so I was working as an assistant nurse at the hospital. I was working at the hospital and I was a phlebotomist for like two years and I was 16 at the time. I liked it and I was good at it, but then I said, ‘No, this is not what my heart says I should be doing.’ So, I went to Pan Am and I looked over the degree plan for broadcast journalism. With all the areas that communication covers you can do so many things under a mass communication degree. I knew it’s a competitive industry, but I was going to go for it. In my heart, it’s just what I wanted to do. It was my passion.”
Did your degree prepare you for the real world? “It did. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very different to what we study in college. It’s very different once you get here. The way they taught us how to write in college is the basics. Once you start in news, it’s way different. You work with hard news, soft/sad news, [and] you also have happy news, so you have a little bit of everything. The way we produce here, in the news department, is much different in the way I was taught in school. But, it did prepare me in terms of what it is to be in front of a camera [and] learning the basics on how to use a camera out on the field. It did prepare me in several ways, but it is very different once you start here.”
Briefly describe what you do in your job? “I do a little bit of everything. I got hired as a weather anchor for Fox and Univision. When I get here, I get my graphics ready because I have to do weather for other markets, like Univision Corpus Christi, Fox Laredo, Fox for the Rio Grande Valley, and Univision for the Rio Grande Valley, Univision Orlando, Univision Tampa and Univision Washington, D.C. I also do entertainment for Univision. Like, when celebrities get here, I go interview them. I inform the community of local events [and] local concerts that are going on across the Rio Grande Valley. And, I also do packages for networks, like Univision Miami’s ‘El Gordo y La Flaca,’ and ‘Primer Impacto.’ I interview the celebrities here, I get in contact with them, and then I send off the interviews and [they] air them on national TV. I produce my own weather segments. If I have entertainment, I produce my own entertainment packages, and interviews. I sometimes go out to the field and I produce Fox News; I’m the assistant producer. So, I do a little bit of everything and little projects on the side, so I feel very blessed.”
What experiences have you had that you would say are out of the ordinary? “I’ve had so many. This job is so interesting. It’s stressful, but it’s fun. If you like what you do, it’s fun. Something that I hate is lightning. As a weather anchor, if it’s severe weather, you have to go outside. You have to inform the community of what’s going on. ‘When is the storm going to end?’ So, just to experience that adrenaline—being outside, informing the community—you have to say bye to your fears because there is no being scared of lightning. Even though there is lightning falling right next to you, you just have to hold it in and inform the community of what’s going on. You feel those hurricane winds and you feel the rain just smacking you in the face. I think that is just the scariest, but coolest, experience I’ve had so far within the industry.”
What is the most memorable moment of your career? “Meeting celebrities that I grew up watching and singers that I admire so much and having the opportunity to be friends with them and interview them. But, I have to share: The most memorable moment is winning my first Lone Star Emmy. Oh my gosh, like, I won my first Emmy as a weather anchor and our evening newscast won, too. Just going up there, and saying my little speech, is a dream come true. I made history in the television industry here in the state of Texas. Competing against other journalists is just amazing. Any journalist wants to get an Emmy. I didn’t expect it, but it’s a dream come true and it’s my most memorable moment till now.
What motivates you to push forward? “My parents and my brother. The support that they have given me since the first day that I started working on television is just incredible. I can’t compare it to anything else [and] just making my parents proud. Just making a difference within my family, me llena de satisfacción. Entonces, poder hacer la diferencia y poder seguir mí carrera es algo muy importante. Y el apoyo de los papás, if you don’t have that support from your parents, it’s really hard to continue doing what you are doing. I’ve been blessed with having parents like that. They love me and motivate me.”
What’s next, careerwise? “I want to go national. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity with Univision Miami. I want to further my career in journalism as a bilingual journalist because I have become very attached to my Fox viewers and to my Univision viewers. So, going national would be my next step.”
What advice do you have for anyone pursuing your degree? “Not to give up. We have had a lot of interns here and I can identify myself with them because I myself was an intern once. So, the interns that come now, I always tell them, ‘Don’t see this as an internship that, ‘Oh, I have to complete this course because I need a credit to graduate.’ No. Don’t see it that way.’ Once you step into this building or any other TV station here in the Valley, all eyes are on you. The news director [and] other reporters want to see what you got. So, you have to come in here and give it your all and work your butt off. You’re going to start off in production first and they teach you how to work the cameras. Once you feel like you have that down, hey, tell the news director or the technical director or whoever you are shadowing, ‘I want to learn this; I want to learn that.’ Make them know that you want to learn and you want to work here and that this is what you want to do when you graduate. In my case, it was a little different because I got hired right after my internship and I hadn’t even graduated yet. But, they saw that I wanted to work here. So, don’t give up and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it because the TV industry is competitive. It is competitive. So what? Keep going. You can do it and there is always a spot for everyone here in the news department, in the radio department. We have production, we have sales; we have a little bit of everything here. If your mind is set that you want to work on television, then keep going. Don’t let anyone tell you, ‘You can’t do it.’ I got told so many times that I wouldn’t make it. So, for all those people that told me that, I’m proving them all wrong. But also, stay humble. That is one thing that has helped me a lot. Once you’re humble, you will fit in anywhere.”
–Compiled by Brenda Garza
