It was my honor to sit down with Marilyn Moritz to talk about her incredible career in broadcast journalism as her time at KSAT comes to an end.
Summarizing her four-decades-long career into one online article and a TV news story was a challenge.
The first question I planned to ask Marilyn: is this surreal?
But in the quick-witted way in which she always thinks one step ahead, she beat me to it.
“This is weird,” Marilyn joked, as we started our conversation.
Marilyn is someone I look up to. Always have.
On my first day at KSAT 12 years ago, the news director was looking around for a free desk and sat me next to Marilyn.
My palms got sweatier because I knew I was in the presence of a pro.
That’s what Marilyn always has been. She’s covered it all: investigative journalism, hurricanes, tornadoes, breaking news, life-changing stories.
She’s met presidents and a king (George Strait, that is).
That line, though
Marilyn’s writing is exceptional. Artistic, really. Her turn of phrase will knock your socks off and, in my opinion, it’s what makes her storytelling so captivating.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
“Occasionally someone will call,” Marilyn said during our conversation. “Maybe it’s someone I know, maybe it’s a complete stranger, who will call and just comment about a line in a story. Or just one little tiny thing and you think, wow, thank you for noticing.”
A love of writing spurred Marilyn’s journalism career, which started at a newspaper.
“I just liked the whole idea of digging for information, whether it’s uncovering something or finding things that are useful information, and putting it together in a story format that people can consume,” she said.
Marilyn’s first job in TV news was in Waco.
“The news director had a soft spot for newspaper reporters and he hired me,” she recalled. “He’s since passed away. Wonderful man. Chain smoker. Stapled hem in his pants. You know, we had the manual typewriters back then. It feels like the olden days.”
She came to KSAT in 1985 after working for a summer at a local broadcast station in Austin.
“I walked in the back door for my 1:30 shift and was on the air at 5:00 reporting,” said Marilyn. “Fourteen or 15,000 stories later, here we are!”
Marilyn said she never expected to stay at KSAT this long and assumed she would move onto a bigger market.
She met her husband, Dave, a KSAT photographer at the time, and the couple later had two daughters.
As Marilyn’s roots grew in San Antonio, so did her career.
“I kind of had two careers here. The first half was working 50, 60-hour weeks doing all the big stories. Go everywhere, do everything. It was great,” she said. “I had great opportunities and anchored for a few years. 5:00, 6:00 news and then some investigative reporting. And then my daughters were born and life changed. So I kind of made a switch to fewer hours and then got into the consumer niche, which I’ve really enjoyed.”
She remembers reporting the creation of River Center Mall and Fiesta Texas and the impact of the closure of Kelly Air Force Base.
Marilyn’s most memorable
If you ask about the most memorable stories of her career, they’re ones that focus on children.
“I had done a story in 1989 (about) a little girl named Alyssa Smith who was going to be the first living donor liver transplant recipient. Her mother (was) the donor. And I went and interviewed them at Thanksgiving. And they were so kind,” Marilyn said. “They’re just the sweetest family and I have followed with them over the years. In fact, I saw them at Christmas.”
Alyssa was one year old at the time of that 1989 interview and today has children of her own.
That story prompted Marilyn’s interest in organ donation.
“A family allowed us to follow them through the entire process. Their son needed a transplant to save his life. And from the moment they got the call, they called us,” she said. “We threw our things in the car and drove to Houston where the surgery was and followed it through. They were wonderful people.”
“Sadly, he did not survive, the little boy. It was devastating,” Marilyn said.
She set the story aside after that heartbreaking news, but then the baby’s mother called.
“She said, let’s proceed with the story because had there been more awareness and more organs available, he could have had another chance,” she said. “That probably is just the biggest one that has stuck with me.”
Another one of Marilyn’s most memorable stories focused on a military child with severe birth defects.
“The Millers had a little boy and the father had been a nurse, an Army nurse, during the Gulf War. And their son was born with some pretty severe birth defects,” she said. “The thinking was that it was exposure to toxic chemicals. And there were other families that we found in Texas and around the country with these seemingly odd birth defects, but they had this commonality.”
“I have remained in contact with them. And, in fact, the boy at the time… he came to the station one day for a tour several years ago,” Marilyn said.
Journalists often get comments about how much heartache and tragedy we cover. And, sadly, there’s truth to that.
Those are elements in some of Marilyn’s most memorable stories.
So I asked her what’s kept her reporting all these years, despite that.
“They need to be told because otherwise how would people know? You know, maybe it just reaches one person or ten people and it causes somebody to do something or just opens their eyes to an issue that they had not thought about,” she said. “And not every story is going to affect, you know, thousands of people. But it might help a couple. And so day after day, it’s sort of a cumulative thing.”
‘Time marches on’
Marilyn jokes that part of the reason she stayed in local news this long was that she didn’t know how to leave.
She plans to keep writing in retirement but knows she will enjoy the freedom that comes with this new chapter.
“I can go to Costco on a Tuesday,” she laughed.
Marilyn also plans to spend more time with her parents.
“It’s time for me to do something else. But it’s also an opportunity for other people who are at different stages of their careers,” she said. “Time marches on.”
She cautions that days are long, but years are short.
Marilyn says she will miss the cast of characters that come with a newsroom, but it’s the extraordinary people she’s met in her 44-year broadcast career for which she is thankful.
“People who have opened their lives and shared, you know, what’s going on in their lives, whether it’s a happy thing or not a happy thing,” Marilyn said. “And so I’m grateful. I’m just grateful for all the years that this career has given me. And I hope I’ve given back just a little bit.”
You have, Marilyn, with grace, class, integrity and indelible storytelling.
Thank you for everything.
Watch some classic reports from Marilyn Moritz’s early years at KSAT:
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