Former QC anchor looks back at her career

Andrea Zina. (photo provided)

Andrea Zinga is a familiar face to Quad Cities TV news viewers. She worked at all three Quad Cities network affiliates as well as CNN. Later she twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress and is now retired.

Paul Yeager of Iowa PBS and I talked with Zinga about her career for the Archives of Iowa Broadcasting’s Oral History Project.

Here are some edited excerpts from our conversation. You can watch the entire interview here.

You’ve said the biggest story you covered during your career was the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1994. You were working at CNN. Tell us about that. I was on the overnight shift anchoring. I was on a break, I was on the phone, and all of a sudden, the beeper at my waist went off. Centennial Olympic Park was across the street from the CNN towers, so we knew the whole area and everything about it very well, thank goodness, because something had exploded. So for two hours, we just sat there and ad-libbed. So I was able to just say the basics of what we knew and then go to people live. And then eventually we got interviews from people who had seen the guy. (Zinga and her CNN colleagues received a national Emmy for their coverage.)

Let’s back up now. Your first TV job was at WQAD in the Quad Cities. I had been in radio, and finally got my interview with the general manager (at WQAD), and he said, ‘What do you want to do here?’ I said, ‘Well, I want to give the news.’ And he said, ‘Nobody wants to hear a woman give the news.’ So I started as a file clerk, and then I started to write commercials, and then I started to voice commercials. And I would sit there in my off time and look at the “On the Air Sign” on the wall, and I would read to it, and that’s how I was able eventually to get into reporting at WQAD.

You worked your way up to co-anchoring with Jim King at WQAD, the legendary Quad Cities newsman. Do you have any anecdotes about working with him? One day on the air, we had just read a story about Marilyn Monroe’s underwear being auctioned for a certain amount, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars. And Jim, being Jim, turned to me absolutely deadpan and said, ‘What would you take for your underwear?’ Now he could not have got away with that comment today, right? I mean, he would have been immediately hauled into the office, if not worse.

What’s a story that stands out for you when you worked in the Quad Cities? I did one when cholesterol was sort of a new thing that people had not heard much about. We did this series on cholesterol that was at KWQC, and we sent 11,000 people to the hospital to have their cholesterol checked. And I’m sure we saved some lives. So that was pretty cool.

What are your thoughts on the future of so-called legacy media: newspapers and TV news?
People are going to get their news where it’s the most convenient. I think local (TV) news probably is going to be safe for a while, especially with the demise of local newspapers, because if people want to know what’s happening locally, they have to look at the local news. But as far as in the future, it will be whatever is the most convenient source.

Speaking of the future, what does the future hold for you? I’m being asked to write a book on becoming a TV anchor, and I don’t know who wants to read it, but it’s fun to write. I’m still waiting to make my mark on the world in a way that will be remembered. So I’m still working at that.

That was going to be my next question. What do you want your legacy to be? How do you want people to remember you? What I would hope is people would say, well, she was fair and she was mostly kind, and she was funny sometimes, and she was a good person.