CBS Atlanta 46 news anchor, Tracye Hutchins, recently visited North Atlanta High School and spoke to journalism students about broadcast journalism.

Hutchins, an evening news anchor for her station, visited Journalism I students on March 7 in the classroom of Mr. Jack Stenger, a journalism teacher. Not only is she an anchor, but she is a North Atlanta parent, too! Her daughter, Paige Overmyer, is a NAHS sophomore.

Hutchins is the second broadcast journalist to visit Room 5116 this year. In October, Carl Azuz, an anchor for CNN Student News, spoke to Stenger’s students.

“We quickly saw that Ms. Hutchins had a message that was incredibly relevant to our class and our lives,” said Chance Johnson, a freshman. “It was a really great day.”

The group interviews with Hutchins covered topics that ranged from Hutchins’s personal life to her professional career. She provided students with insight that only comes after a lengthy career in the media. Hutchins commented, “Don’t stress yourself out looking at the big picture now, you have your whole life for that.”

Her first job after college was as a reporter for a station in Kirksville, Missouri. During her time there, she described herself as a “one-man band,” a young professional who had to learn everything about making a news package. She earned the meager salary of just $10,000 a year while she worked for the station, saying, “This is not the kind of job where you’re going to make a lot of money right off the bat.”

After her humble beginnings, Hutchins worked at news stations in Terre Haute, Indiana, Fort Meyers, Florida, Phoenix, Arizona, and San Diego, California. She has been with CBS Atlanta since 2007, where she anchors the four, five, six, and 11 o’clock pm news shows.

During her talk with students, she dispelled the rumors of “glamour” associated with broadcast news. “To do this job you truly have to want to do it. And you have to understand that this is a business. There’s a lot of subjective pressure. A lot of your success can be based on how you look and if someone likes you. If they do, you can stay on. But if they get tired of you, they can go with someone else,” she said.

After the group interviews, students gathered around Hutchins for a “selfie” that the news anchor later posted on her Twitter account. She told students she enjoys her job because of the daily changes, “I continue to learn things every day and that’s one thing I really like about my job,” she said

Below, Hutchins speaks to the students.