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b"Wendy Rieger, NBC4 news anchor, is host Andy Ockershausen\\u2019s guest in this all new episode of Our Town. Wendy recalls stories and experiences during this interview that will give you good insight into who she is, and how she got to be where she is today.\\n\\n\\n\\nAndy and Wendy talk about how Wendy came to live and work in Our Town. Although not a native Washingtonian, Wendy says she \\u201calways says I feel like I'm from here because I came here when I was 22 from Norfolk Virginia. I went to school at American University . . .that's what brought me here . . .I was finishing up my school.\\u201d Wendy goes on to tell Andy about how it was she decided togo to American University\\u2019s School of Communication. This journey included dropping out of Old Dominion in her sophomore year, and taking up acting much to her Mom\\u2019s dismay.\\n \\nWendy\\u2019s interest in news started because of a job she held to make money while acting. She started doing the news on FM 99 because they needed to do news on Saturday and Sunday morning for the FCC. Wendy wasn\\u2019t a newsperson but needed the money and auditioned for the position \\u201cas an actor being a newsperson\\u201d. She got the job, did it for a year, and fell in love with news. That is what got her back into college. To this day, Wendy refers to this positive experience in her life when speaking with friends whose children are suddenly veering off course. \\n\\nWendy Rieger interned at WMAL and that\\u2019s where she and Andy first met. He knew right away that she \\u201cwould go places\\u201d. She went on to work at 88.5FM. There she learned a lot, and at 26 became the local host of Morning Edition. She \\u201clearned about writing and long format radio and the use of ambient sound\\u201d. She tells Andy that she listened everyday to NPR writers, who she calls \\u201cmagazines writers\\u201d, and that they unknowingly mentored her. She used them as examples of what she needed to be. She names Bob Edwards and Susan Stamberg as just a couple of those she admired. She felt lucky to be in an environment she considered \\u201cfertile ground\\u201d for her new career. \\n\\nWendy and Andy go on to talk about CBS and WTOP. Wendy tells Andy that WTOP was a whole different ballgame than NPR. WTOP was like the Indy 500 and NPR had a certain spa-like quality, in that it was just relaxed and much more thoughtful. WTOP was fast and furious, and she recalls the frenzy she experienced covering her first Right to Life march on Washington. She and Andy laugh as Wendy recalls wrestling with the phone booth phones and the alligator clips she had to use to file her stories.\\n\\nBefore getting a call from WRC-TV (NBC4), Wendy spent a short time at local CNN and that\\u2019s where she got her feet wet in television. She tells Andy \\u201cthat was a whole \\u2018nother kind of mixing bowl explosion because now you have to add video to it so you had to be concerned about your video\\u201d as well as write your story. Wendy recalls her early years at WRC-TV (Channel 4) \\u201cduring the drug wars\\u201d where it was normal for there to be four people executed inside a house just every other night. Wendy recalls Pat Collins and others who were part of the hierarchy of old street reporters that you could learn from and watch. She advises students \\u201cto study your job . . .study the people around you\\u201d to learn what you need to be good at your job. She goes on to tell Andy that she did that very thing for the first four days of her Olympic coverage. Even though she has been in the business for 36 years she had never covered the Olympics so she studied and quietly watched all the sports reporters who were in her area to figure it all out.\\n\\nWendy looks back when the competition was \\u201cat a wonderfully high rolling boil\\u201d and \\u201cit was about the story . . . you were in the trenches. . .\\u201d not like today it is all about \\u2018tweeting and social media . . . it really was meaty and you had great fistfuls of news back then. . .\\u201d Wendy was a trailblazer, and was so at a time when she had little support because the station was being..."