news-engine

On the fifth floor of a nondescript office building on Battery Street, news anchor Juliette Goodrich walks into the KPIX-TV newsroom wearing high heels, bright red pants and a black top, ready to speak to the entire country. She marches over to a massive curved green screen, joking with her cameraman Mat Straub while fielding my questions as the clock ticks down to showtime, decidedly nonplussed about the fact that, in under a minute’s time, she’ll be addressing the nation on “CBS News 24/7,” the network’s online national news show. “30 seconds is a long time in this business,” she says, continuing to chat until Straub interrupts — “10,” he says, and she’s still joking about checking her texts to see if her mom is watching. Straub says “5,” and she straightens her posture; “3,” eyes straight at the camera; "2," she's still as a statue; the "1" is silent; and then she launches into the “A block” of hard news about stories, ranging from a burning apartment building in the Bronx to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony to Congress. Her work has earned her 10 Emmy Awards. Goodrich was raised in the Bay Area suburb of Pleasanton, where she got her start in broadcasting in front of an audience of 300,000 at Tri-Valley Community Television (Channel 30). She still lives there to this day, sending her children to the high school she herself attended. Around the Bay Area, she’s something of a local celebrity — regarding the places where she’s been spotted the most, she cites the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport and Costco (while munching on samples). During the rare moments when she’s not obsessively tuned in to the news, she can be found riding her horse Lucky, which she purchased off Craigslist, of all places, after doing a story on rescue horses. Advertisement Article continues below this ad After attending UC Davis, her path to a network news show in San Francisco went along “the California route,” as she calls it, never leaving the state as she worked her way up from smaller markets like Redding and Chico, then Sacramento. “When I started, I was the morning reporter, and I think that’s where you get your chops, when you’re out in the field and you’re working with the photographers and knowing the lay of the land,” she said. Since 1997, Goodrich has been at KPIX 5, first as a reporter and then as the evening anchor of shows at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m, plus the national online CBS news show. She found that working in San Francisco required a rigor beyond what she’d experienced in other markets. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “You can’t turn a story just for face value. It’s like, let’s dig a little bit deeper. Like why is this happening? What can be solved?” she said. “Holding politicians accountable, following through with a story rather than just slapping it on the air and then there’s the next news day,” she added, citing political stories and issues like homelessness as major priorities. One recent addition to Goodrich’s reporting repertoire came in February, with the launch of Bay Area Unsolved, a series that investigates cold cases. The first story revisited the 2016 killing of Calvin Riley, who was shot in the back at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park while playing Pokémon Go. Goodrich visited his family, resulting in an emotional interview. Another case involves Rick DeVecchi, who was killed during a hit-and-run in Berkeley in 1998. “We’re trying to do more of an in-depth look at these cases. Not just give you a two-minute story that airs one night on the news and then you don’t see it beyond that,” she said in a promotional video about the series. The full interviews are posted on YouTube, giving local true crime stories the long-form treatment. The station has a robust YouTube presence, with 474,000 subscribers and news stories regularly topping 1,000 views in under 24 hours. Goodrich’s national show streams for free at CBS.com. Advertisement Article continues below this ad With almost 30 years of reporting in San Francisco under her belt, Goodrich has some wisdom to impart about what makes a good newscaster. For one, you need to know a little bit about everything — but not too much, because then your preconceived notions could close you off from listening. She also said it helps to be a person who bores easily, oddly enough, as the relentless pace of news is the perfect attention stimulant. When asked about what news anchor superpower she might want, her answer had an uncanny connection to a plot point in the movie “Disclosure Day”: Goodrich would love to know exactly what her audience is thinking in real time to allow her to better relate to her viewers. In addition to her demanding anchoring duties, Goodrich is also a published author and has written a series of children’s books, with the first one inspired by a reporting trip that covered the 100th birthday party of the world’s oldest operating light bulb, located in Livermore Fire Station No. 6. Although her reporting chops and anchor fundamentals were established decades ago, the technology of covering the news is always changing. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “The days of the desk are over here at Channel 5,” she joked. When she’s on camera, she stands in front of a large curved green screen, with 16 motion-capture cameras and a positional tracker worn by Goodrich ensuring that video clips and on-screen graphics appear naturally without any awkward clipping or bleed-over. The teleprompters have also been upgraded recently, with artificial intelligence capabilities that scroll text down when the AI hears three words of correct dialogue in a row, giving the anchor room to improvise and add their own signature nuances without the teleprompter continuing to scroll. Those improvisational flourishes are what Goodrich feels are part of what sets the best broadcasters apart. For such a high-tech broadcast, one might assume a large group of staff is sitting in the background, but on the day of our visit, it was just Straub helming a camera on a massive jib, with meteorologist Zoe Mintz waiting in the wings for a segment that’ll show her standing above a topographic map. As for Goodrich’s future, she doesn’t see herself leaving the Bay Area any time soon, as she’s already leveled up to reach a national audience, reporting just miles from where she grew up. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “I get to go national in my own backyard,” she said. News | Monterey couple who housed 300 in greenhouses pleads no contest Travel | Bay Area family's food empire swallows tiny town Culture | Laid off after 24 years, Bay Area radio host writes scathing farewell Crime | Boys ages 12, 13 and 16 charged in California killing Read our stories ad-free on the new SFGATE app.