New York’s Best Selling author of Womenomics and Senior ABC news correspondent, Claire Shipman was featured as the keynote speaker for the Communication Hall of Fame Banquet, Friday September 20, 2013. Claire Shipman sat down before the banquet with The Prairie for a Q&A session.
The Prairie: “What would you like the students to take from tonight?”
Claire Shipman: “Tonight I am talking a lot about women, power and where women are today in terms of the world of work. I guess what I want everybody to take from tonight is it’s really an exciting time. I think that even for me I didn’t grow up thinking I am not going to be able to do what I want and that was the generation right above me. My mother never made me feel that I couldn’t and that I always would be able to. What so exciting is that now given in all the research I’ve done from what I wrote and the new book I am writing is that the way women operate is really valuable and everybody is starting to understand that. In fact the way women operate often is the way the whole generation operates.
The Prairie: “What advice would you give students majoring in Mass Communication today?”
Claire Shipman: “Learn to write, take advantage of the fact that you have fantastic teachers here who are focusing on you and will proof read, edit and just practice, practice writing. Writing is so important, even for television. Don’t be afraid to try things. Try them and see what fits.”
The Prairie: “What made you want to write the book about Womenomics? Why that topic?
Claire Shipman: First it was personal. I was just worn out of my own struggles at work really, trying to have kids, work, being frustrated and thinking am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing and should I quit? Do I have a good career? And suddenly I just had a moment of wait I think this maybe a good balance. I started talking to other women and I realized a lot of us have the same feelings and wouldn’t it be a great story to tell. And then the more research I did the more I realized WOW this really is a great story. And I think it will help a lot of women to understand that we have a lot of power that we often don’t know about in terms of our skills.”
The Prairie: “What is your opinion on the media today in general and why?”
Claire Shipman: “I think is very tumultuous. It’s hard to watch in a lot of ways because I experienced the end of the golden era of network television, an example the kind of big spending we’re going to send five crews and three reporters to Berlin then and everybody’s going to watch it because there’s not that many channels and I missed that to some extend and I even missed the early days of CNN because it was the same way. Figuring out how to have an impact as a journalist is a lot harder now. Another thing that worries me is there are fewer resources to go deep on a lot of the stories and to really investigate there. In the end I am excited.”
The Prairie: “Is your new book, going to be similar to your first one?”
Claire Shipman: “Similar, it’s about confidence so it’s largely about women and confidence but its applicable to everybody so it’s going to be interesting for men to. We get into a lot about Biology, Genetics and where confidence comes from.”
