Media director has news for you

Tracing Marco Polo's Silk Route though Hong Kong, across China, and into Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan led Katherine Malle from her home state of Vermont to the Albany Diocese.

Ms. Malle, an award-winning television reporter from WCAX-TV in Burlington, was recently appointed director of the diocesan Media Office.

"I love to travel," Ms. Malle said. "I love to see how other people live and worship. I love to discover commonalities between cultures."

Change of plans

While her two-month back-packing adventure through Asia with her husband allowed them to explore other cultures, it also provided the couple with time to reflect on their lives and their future plans.

"We both got sick and reevaluated our lives," she said. "We decided to make job changes that would allow us more time together. I wanted to find a balance."

While working in TV news was a life-long ambition, she discovered that the job required many sacrifices. She described never having a lunch hour but grabbing something to eat on the run, getting calls late at night to come in to work and not having holidays off.

Time for family

"I used to work an average of 55 to 60 hours a week," she said. "The first Thanksgiving I had off was after working at the station for five years. My husband and I wanted time together. It was important to me to have quality of life."

Heading the Media Office seemed like the perfect fit because "it allows me to be creative and work in a medium I enjoy," she said.

The office produces the weekly televised Mass, "Table of the Lord," monthly specials called "Catholic Charities at Work," and educational videos on Church issues.

Working on positive programming is a welcome change for Ms. Malle, who said: "I've been in the news business for more than ten years, and I saw the quality change. I wanted to do something more positive. Television news isn't always positive."

Winds of change

While she started in her new position in May, the full impact of her career change hit her recently while she and the Media Office staff put together a special edition of "Catholic Charities At Work," covering the agency's efforts to help survivors of the tornados that recently struck the area.

"When they knew we were from the Diocese, they wanted to talk to us," she said of the victims.

The way she covered the tornado for "Catholic Charities At Work" was different from what she would have done as a television reporter. "Instead of the tragedy, we focused on moving ahead," she said. "It was a different angle but covering the same event."

News to her

While she is enjoying more regular work hours and having free time, she does miss being involved in news. "I really love news," she said. "I really miss that I'm not in the news pulse.

"The only television my family watched was television news," she said of her childhood. "I remember Walter Cronkite and Charles Kuralt. I was attracted to the fact that they were storytellers. I always wanted to tell stories and inform people. I also love using pictures and natural sound to tell that story. I enjoy that creative process. It's a challenge."

Ms. Malle is impressed with the Media Office's equipment and the talent. "The studio is equipped with really good equipment," she said. "This operation is very professional in terms of equipment and staff. Heather [Sahm] and Jason [Lewis] are talented producers."

With those resources, Ms. Malle would like to increase the programming produced by the Media Office and turn out videos on issues important to Catholics that can be used in parishes. Some of the videos that can be expected in the near future cover topics like physician-assisted suicide, abstinence and vocations.

She is looking forward to producing videos for the diocese because she'll be able to provide more in-depth coverage of issues than she was able to do as a television reporter.

"Television news is a headline service," she said. "If you need more information, you need to go to a newspaper. With Heather and Jason, I have the opportunity to tell stories that are more than two minutes long. We have a real luxury here to explain and explore issues in-depth."

(06-18-98) [[In-content Ad]]