Drohan Tweets Her Way From Westfield to Knoxville

Twitter serves many avenues for users. Some choose to use the site to keep their friends and family connected, businesses promote their products, politicians get their messages across and Westfield Patch uses it to help report the news. For Jamie Lynn Drohan, the departing director of TV-36, the social networking site landed her a new job.

Drohan had interviewed for a job with an NBC affiliate in Washington State, which she was offered. While she ended up declining the job, she chose to place it on her Twitter feed, where a sudden new opportunity came along.

"I had put that on my Twitter and the news director in Knoxville, Tenn., is a follower of mine on Twitter," she said.

Suddenly, Drohan found herself with a direct Tweet from the news director of WATE, the ABC affiliate in Knoxville. He offered her a shot at the morning anchor position, saying he had looked at her demo reel on YouTube and was impressed by what he saw. (It is common for many up-and-coming television journalists to place their demo reels on YouTube.)

Drohan admits that she honestly thought the entire thing was a joke. But as she exchanged Tweets with the news director she discovered it was not. The exchanges soon upgraded to e-mail and phone calls.

"Who gets offered a job on Twitter?" Drohan asked several weeks later, still clearly shocked by how the process came together.

Doing her research, Drohan said she was impressed by the Knoxville market, the 59th largest in the country, and with the ABC television family. Flying down to Tennessee for her first-ever visit, the New Jersey native said she was impressed with the college town. She said downtown Knoxville had many bistros and shops and the University of Tennessee is an integral part of the community.

"It felt like Hoboken," Drohan said.

Making the decision to be Diane Sawyer's Knoxville lead-in was tough, as she would be leaving TV-36 after three years, a period where she grew to call Westfield home. She landed the local television chief's job in an interesting way too. Working as an anchor for Comcast Newsmakers, her first ever interview was with Mayor Andy Skibitsky, who struck up a conversation with her about the vacant post, which she soon landed.

While at TV-36, she helped launch several new programs including 07090 News, Westfield 360 with Councilwoman Joann Neylan and Hometown with Mayor Andy Skibitsky. She also helped continue several shows, including those geared toward kids, senior citizens and cooking.

Drohan's original vision for the station, included offering more programming and moving away from the bulletin board function. She believes she was able to deliver on that vision and will leave that as her legacy for the town. Looking back, she does have one regret, not being able to continue her Jaywalking shows, where she would walk around downtown and talk to local business owners about what they are doing in the community. Drohan hopes the station will continue that.

One of her favorite memories of her time in Westfield was developing 07090 News. A child of the '90s, Drohan was always reminded of the '90s television hit Beverly Hills 90210 when saying Westfield's zip code. Wanting to put a local news show on the station, Drohan struck on the idea of merging the idea with the iconic television show. She did her research and found theme music for the show which was similar to the theme from the television show.

Moving away from Westfield, Drohan will have a lifestyle different from running the town's television station and interviewing Garden State politicos on Comcast. She will be waking up at 2 a.m. in order to be in the office from 3:30 a.m. and be ready to co-anchor the news from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. After handing over ABC's airwaves to the Good Morning America crew in New York, her day will not be over, as she will be doing local news cut-ins during the two-hour GMA broadcast. She will likely be out of the office by 12:30 p.m. unless she's working on a feature story for the evening news broadcast.

Drohan will have some Westfield connections at her new job, as one of the other anchors is a Scotch Plains native. She will even be using Twitter from behind the anchor desk, helping to communicate with viewers and discuss what's going on in Knoxville. She encourages Westfield residents to follow her on Twitter and keep up with her new adventures.

While leaving for Tennessee and a new lifestyle, she will continue to fondly remember her time her in Westfield.

"They are all wonderful people," Drohan said of Westfield. "They are all good people. This is a beautiful town. No town compares to Westfield."