Dateline Powell a Western influence
By Catharine Snider

Polly Powell

Her workday usually begins at 7:00 a.m. On some days, it doesn't end until 11:30 p.m. The day is constantly filled with talking to people, researching, writing, editing, producing – all the duties that make it possible for people to watch the news on television and catch a slice of someone's life unfolding before their eyes.

For Polly Powell ('79), the senior producer for "Dateline NBC" in its West Coast office, the most exhilarating aspect of being a journalist is the opportunity to affect people's lives through stories.

"The most rewarding part of my job are the stories that help people," says Powell, 45. "You can connect with people on and off the air and make an impact on their lives."

But the news on Dateline isn't the only report to give. Every storyteller has her or his own story to tell. And Powell – whose career depends on telling other people's stories – says she has many personal accounts to offer.

She came to Colorado after graduating from a small high school in her hometown of Spokane, Wash. She says she wanted a university where she could get lost in the crowd yet still be challenged academically. And CU fit that description.

Going to school in Boulder proved to be an enjoyable experience, she says. CU had a winning football team in those years, and Powell loves football. While there was plenty of time to play, she says she thrived on taking demanding classes. Political science was the first major she considered. She says she took so many political science classes that she essentially earned an unofficial minor.

One teacher in particular helped further her interest in the field. Chuck Green ('69), an adjunct instructor who worked for The Denver Post, set tough standards in his classes and challenged Powell in her studies – pushing her to work harder and igniting her desire to succeed, she says.

Her career path would lead to broadcast news, but she says she never took any broadcast classes in college, only print journalism. The print classes allowed her to hone her writing skills, a craft she says is just as vital in broadcasting.

"The writing was really important because writing is essential in any area of journalism," Powell says.

The summer before her senior year of college, Powell worked as an intern at KXLY, a television station in Spokane. She credits the internship – her first professional journalism experience – with giving her more of a hook into the business. While moving from an education in print to a job in broadcast, she says she noticed distinctions between the two journalism realms.

"Broadcasting is much more collaborative than print because you need so many different elements to come together, whereas print really comes down to the writing – you don't have any video to carry you," Powell says.

After graduating from the School in December 1979, she worked for KNXT-TV in Los Angeles, starting as a production assistant. By the time she left six years later, she was a field producer. The job was a great learning ground, she says, enabling her to become skilled in many aspects of production, including writing, filming and editing.

Powell says she left the station when an NBC producer recruited her as an associate producer. After working there only six months, she became a producer and has been working for NBC in Los Angeles ever since.

"I'm an anachronism in the sense that I've stayed in Los Angeles my entire career. It's rare for people in broadcasting to stay in one place," Powell says.

Her initial work for NBC was in specials. She says she worked on "1986," "Expose," "Dateline NBC," "First Person with Maria Shriver" and "Now" before returning to Dateline, where she became the senior producer. She oversees Dateline's West Coast Office and produces stories for the show.

"The thing I love doing the most is producing," Powell says.

Her production skills have earned her eight Emmy Award nominations, and she's won three. But she says that none of the nominated stories – coverage of tornadoes in Oklahoma City, fires in Malibu or Ronald Reagan's success story – qualify as the one that is most important to her.

Powell says she did her most significant work eight years ago. As she recounts the tale of this work, she shifts the focus away from herself and is once again the narrator of someone else's story.

While working on Dateline, Powell says she covered several stories about inner cities, particularly gangs. As she visited inner cities, she says she became aware that a lot of good families live in the inner city. From that knowledge grew the desire to profile an inner-city family.

And so she found Byron, a 13-year-old boy living in Chicago's core city. Byron lived with his mother, a woman who adopted him when he was an infant. One of Byron's close friends, a straight-A student and star basketball player, had recently been shot to death by someone who mistook him for a gang member. Powell says she and her crew spent three months following Byron and his mother, filming a total of four shoots.

The footage shows a chubby adolescent boy with no street smarts who has to take three buses to get to school every day. It reveals a mother trying to save enough money to send her son to a private school or to buy a house in a better neighborhood.

"We let them tell their own story," Powell says. "We showed there are good people in these neighborhoods, and they struggle every day."

Powell worked on the story with Tom Brokaw. In addition to conducting most of the interviews, Brokaw played an instrumental role in the story's creation, she says.

"It was nice working with Tom because he has a sensitivity for stories that aren't usually covered," Powell adds.

After the show aired, people began sending money to Byron and his mother to help them get out of the neighborhood, she says. Kids sent pennies. A homeless man sent them a dollar.

Byron's mother used the money as a down payment on a house in a safer neighborhood, where they live today, Powell says, adding that she keeps in touch with Byron. When he finished high school, she says she flew to Chicago for his graduation. He's now studying to be a military chaplain.

Powell spent four months last year in New York working on the "Today" show. By Thanksgiving, Powell had returned to Los Angeles, where she resumed writing, producing and telling the stories that affect people's lives.