The nine months after Hurricane Katrina were defining ones for Sandy Breland, who at the time was the news director at WWL-TV in New Orleans.
Breland and her reporter husband, who lived in Baton Rouge after losing their home in the 2005 storm, would begin their commute before 6 a.m. each day, dropping off their son at school in New Orleans before beginning their 10-hour workday. Often, they didn’t return home until 9 p.m., where they were greeted by both sets of in-laws, who also were living with them.
“It was one of the most stressful times of my life,” Breland says. “But it was a defining moment because I was coordinating coverage of a major event that I was personally impacted by.”
A lot of people would have thrown in the towel. Not Breland, who exhibits a passion for the news business that—if anything—was strengthened by the Katrina experience. Breland, who cut her teeth at WWL-AM in the 1980s, now is running Baton Rouge’s top-rated television station, WAFB-TV.
Since taking over last summer, she hasn’t been afraid to make some noticeable changes to an on-air product that’s already popular. She also is carving out new territory, experimenting with emerging media platforms in an effort to stay relevant to a scattering audience.
“I was fortunate to come to a station that already had a great track record and a lot of great people,” Breland says. “But no one here takes our status for granted, so they understand the need to constantly challenge ourselves.”
Breland, a lifelong New Orleanian who spent 11 years as news director at WWL-TV, never thought she’d be back in Baton Rouge after returning to her renovated home in Slidell in summer 2006. But just two months after settling in, WWL’s parent company offered her the news director job at KTVK-TV in Phoenix, a top-10 market. Unable to pass up such a great opportunity, the family relocated. They returned to Louisiana last summer after WAFB’s parent company recruited her to be the local station’s GM.
“Phoenix was completely different, and I learned new things that helped prepare me for where I am now,” Breland says. “But we missed it here. They didn’t have the common grounds and the roots you see here. And they didn’t have the passion. People here are passionate about everything—even their local news.”
Still, Breland hasn’t been afraid to tinker with WAFB’s long-established newscasts. Among the most noticeable changes have been adding former anchor Greg Meriwether to the morning show as a reporter and expanding the popular Street Beat franchise to the predawn hours. She’s also brought traffic reporting in-house, encouraged more investigative reporting and added interactive elements to all the daily newscasts.
It’s a trying time for television, with rapidly evolving technology, increased competition and an economic recession. But then, Breland thrives under pressure and relishes a challenge.
“Technology is changing every day, and we have to make sure that we use technology to our viewers’ advantage,” she says. “We have to embrace it.”
