14/03/2019
People who shook Media as we know it.
Oprah Winfery.
It takes alot to daring to rise above the challenges life throws your way, and resilence to keep doing what you are doing.
Oprah Winfery is one of the women in media who is both daring and resilent.
Being born into poverty, sexually abused at a young age and losing a child at 14, didnot in anyway hinder her drive to do something positive in this world, rather it became an effective tool for her to connect with her audience on radio and television.
Oprah Winfery started her media career at the age of 19 as a co-anchor for the local evening news in CBS. At 22, she was co-anchor of the six 0-clock news on Baltimore’s WJZ-TV. However, a year later she was removed and forced to work lesser jobs at the station. The producer told her that she didn’t have “the look” and therefore wouldn’t be able to “connect” with the viewers.
Despite this, she moved to Chicago to host the faltering talk show AM Chicago in 1984 . Her honest and engaging personality quickly turned the program into a success. Today, she is credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication. She popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue and in 1985 it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. Syndicated nationally in 1986, the program earned several Emmy Awards.
It was said in the times magazine that, " ...
What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye ... They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session."
One of the things that inspired her to start her own show was the discrimination of womenfolk in media. Although she work the same amount of time as her co-anchor she was paid less than he was.
Oprah Winfery explored the different aspects of media without limiting herself. She created her own production company called Harop Productions, and later launched a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network on January 1, 2011 and Oprah’s Next Chapter, a weekly prime-time interview program on OWN, debuted in January 2012. On September 2017, it was announced by CBS, that Winfrey would join 60 Minutes as a special contributor on the Sunday evening news magazine program. The National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2018 opened a special exhibit on Winfrey's cultural influence through television.
Oprah Winfery also lent her voice to animated films as well including, Charlotte’s Web (2006) and The Princess and the Frog (2009), and appeared in Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013). She featured in movies and produced many as well including, Selma (2014), a film about Martin Luther King, Jr. She also featured in the film "Beloved", adapted from the book by the Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison.
Oprah Winfrey venutured into the publishing industry with first an on-air book club in 1996, and used her television program to champion the works of authors she admires, including Morrison, and her longtime friend Maya Angelou. Her selections became instant bestsellers, and in 1999 Winfrey received the National Book Foundation’s 50th anniversary gold medal for her service to books and authors. She herself has authored five books including the highly successful launch of O, the Oprah Magazine in 2000 and O at Home in 2004,(although the latter folded in 2008).
She carried out philanthropic acts, including the creation of Oprah’s Angel Network, which sponsors charitable initiatives worldwide. She also open a school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa, in 2007. She is a crusader against child abuse and calls for racial and gender equality.
She has received numerous awards among which are :
A Kennedy Center honoree in 2010, The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2011, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2013, The Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement) in 2018.
Oprah Winfery turned 65 years on January 2019. She is dubbed the "Queen of Daytime TV" and has become one of the most influencial women in the world today.
