Duke alumna Lisa Ferri on the set of World News with Diane Sawyer.
Lisa Ferri sat just off set while the nation's last female big-three-network anchor, Diane Sawyer, delivered her final evening newscast this past August. As head writer and coordinating producer of World News with Diane Sawyer, Ferri found it to be a definitive newscast. The Angier B. Duke scholar's reaction to the change?
Excitement.
In the weeks after Sawyer's announcement, Ferri promised Duke's Office of Undergraduate Scholars and Fellows (OUSF) she would reveal all. The revelation – Ferri will stay on with the broadcast, now called World News Tonight with David Muir.
"I'm working as David's head writer and coordinating producer," says Ferri. "We have been doing great in the ratings. We have pulled into first place in the all important 25-54 age range demographic."
No surprise that Ferri is rolling with the changes and embracing the opportunities they bring. It's the same attitude the Duke biology major adopted when she unexpectedly fell in love with the television industry during a summer internship with MTV, in New York City.
"The people who hired me were actually Duke alums," says Ferri. "They were ten to fifteen years older than me and they took me under their wings. They said, 'This is how you get into television.'"
Bitten by the TV bug, after graduation from Duke in 1994, Ferri would later defer her admission into NYU law school.
"I deferred for a year, just following my instincts,"explains Ferri. "I was excited about going to law school, but I had a hunch there was still this little dream that I had and I didn’t know how to explore that. I took that year and met a lot of people who were journalists. They worked at Fortune. They worked at the Times. They worked at Women's Wear Daily. And they encouraged me. They said, 'This is something you can do. We’re doing it. There's no reason why you can’t do it.' Sometimes you need that person on the other side to get you over the fear."
At first Ferri worked what she calls "a proper job to pay the bills," while freelance writing for magazines and online sources. She moved to Boston to produce a TV show, but the program went bust. Ferri was anything but discouraged.
"I figured I could walk up to ABC and they would hire me,” she chuckles and shakes her head at the memory. "That didn't happen, but I still had a dream. I just didn't know how to get there."
She went to graduate school for journalism at Columbia University, where she met and became teaching assistant for Richard Wald, the retired Senior Vice President of Editorial Quality at ABC News and former President of NBC News.
"When I graduated, Dick told me to take another serious look at ABC," says Ferri. “ABC was just starting a weekend edition of GMA. There was a slot open. I got on that show, and then segued onto the weekday show, where Diane was the anchor. She worked with veteran news writers. When you’re new you sort of work all the bad shifts. I was there for a breaking news story one day, and I was thrust upon her because I happened to be there and it went well. That led quickly to me working with Diane Sawyer all of the time."
Which meant a very early morning routine of arriving at the ABC studios at 3:30 a.m., copy-editing scripts, and briefing Sawyer, Charlie Gibson, and Robin Roberts on the show plans.
"Planning the show is like flying the space shuttle," says Ferri. "It's enormous."
When Sawyer moved from GMA to World News, Ferri moved with her a few months later, sitting just out of sight of the cameras during each newscast. The journalists covered major news stories together, including presidential campaigns.
"We interviewed Obama when he won Iowa. We were there the night he lost New Hampshire and the night he accepted the Democratic nomination for president," recalls Ferri. “Extraordinary moments. Somebody pinch me, because you have a front row seat on history. It’s such a privilege to be right up there."
Ferri, Sawyer, and their team also covered tragedies.
"When the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened, in Newtown, it was on our shift," says Ferri. "We were live, on-set, until hand-off to another anchor. Then we traveled to Newtown to do live coverage there."
Ferri would go on to win a 2014 Writers Guild Award for the Sandy Hook coverage. The previous year, she won the same prestigious award for coverage of the Colorado movie theater shootings. Ferri tells OUSF the biggest reward has been working with great people, like Sawyer and Wald.
"It was a privilege to be with Diane, especially at a time when she was the only female anchor. She and Dick Wald are incredibly wise, fearless, and unstoppable. I worked for someone who is a living legend."
With Muir, Ferri will work on the biggest stories and interviews of the day for ABC News. She handles the twists and turns in her career much in the same way she handles breaking news – energized and excited for whatever comes next.