TV Trailblazer Jacobson Stepping Down

July 14, 2007 — -- When Natalie Jacobson wanted to be a TV reporter in 1972, she wasn't what television bosses in Boston wanted: She was a woman.

In the 1970s, women in the business comprised just 12 percent of local newsrooms. The women who were employed were almost entirely behind the scenes.

Jacobson continued to push for an audition and finally got the chance.

"We went through a three-day process of intense questioning, testing my ability to write, see if I have a brain," Jacobson said of her three-day audition. "[They asked] do I know anything about what's going on in the world? And then [I] got the job."

Jacobson spent two years as the only female reporter in the newsroom. Then, the same bosses who were initially wary of hiring a female reporter asked her to be one of their anchors. In 1976, Jacobson became Boston's first woman to anchor an evening broadcast.

Jacobson would marry her co-anchor Chet Curtis, and the two became known simply as Chet and Nat to their viewers. Boston's own royal couple teamed up for coverage of Queen Elizabeth's 1976 visit to Boston. For nearly two decades, the two navigated the tragedies and the triumphs for viewers who tuned into their top-rated broadcasts.

Though she delivered the headlines, Jacobson often made them too.

At 37, Jacobson got pregnant. Considered old by some, one paper dubbed hers "the geriatric pregnancy."

When her daughter Lindsay was born, it was the lead story on the evening news. Jacobson remembers asking at the time, "Isn't there anything else going on in the world?"

Jacobson recounted a fond memory of a fan who sent a doll and note during her pregnancy.

"[It] said if your mom was still alive she would say all of these things," Jacobson said. "And I just bawled. I never again saw people en masse. I saw them as individuals."

Jacobson's viewers became so attached that they had a particularly strong reaction to an interview she conducted with one-time gubernatorial candidate John Silber. Jacobson asked Silber about his strengths and weaknesses.

He answered, "Weaknesses? You find my weaknesses. I don't have to go around telling you what's wrong with me."

Jacobson clarified it was not intended to be an antagonistic question. At the time, political analysts believed Silber's chances all but evaporated after his bold response to Jacobson.

Political interviews were the kind of fare Jacobson fought to keep just as out-of-town consultants were hired at stations across the country to ratchet up ratings. There was pressure to make local newscasts flashier and faster, contributing to the cliché, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Jacobson spoke out against the practice. Hundreds of letters applauding Jacobson's position poured into the newsroom.

"Natalie said what everyone was thinking," said Emily Rooney, a WGBH-TV host and formerly Jacobson's news director, "that consultants across the country are homogenizing the news. It's cookie cutter news."

At 63 and still number one, Natalie announced that next week will be her last. She said it was a difficult decision, but it comes at a time when she said there's less time in local news for her style of reporting.

"I used to say in '72, someday it's going to be equal," she added. "It won't matter if you're a boy or a girl ... and that happened. And that was a wonderful thing. And now the business is predominantly women."

She added with a playful laugh, "Maybe we're just better than you guys."

While announcing her decision to her co-workers, she said she was looking for her "next big thing," which is to help other baby-boomers find their next career move that "satisfies our passion."

She plans a multi-media business with a Web site called, "My Next Big Thing."

After more than 35 years at WCVB-TV, Jacobson's announcement brought tears from her team and tears from the trailblazer too.

ABC News' David Muir reported this story for "World News."