Joan Lunden P’27 on the news industry, reinvention, and resilience

Known to many for her two decades on “Good Morning America,” Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist and television host and New York Times best-selling author Joan Lunden P’27 spoke candidly to Skidmore families, alumni, and community members during “Good Morning Skidmore,” a special event of this year’s Homecoming and Family Weekend. 

In conversation with fellow Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Julie Chapman of Spectrum News 1 Albany, Lunden brought her signature warmth and humor as she talked about her most recent book, “Joan: Life Beyond the Script,” and the lessons she’s learned throughout her groundbreaking career, by balancing ambition, motherhood, and family, and through perseverance, positivity, and advocacy. 

Skidmore President Marc Conner introduced the event in Arthur Zankel Music Center, a collaboration between the College and the city’s Saratoga Book Festival. “This session is especially meaningful, as Joan Lunden also happens to be not just one of America’s most recognized and trusted public figures, but she is a Skidmore parent,” he noted. 

He expressed what an honor it was to be celebrating trusted journalism during a challenging time for distinguishing fact from fiction. Conner has made free speech and expression a top priority for the College, and Skidmore launched its Credible News, Credible Information program last year to provide students with faculty guidance and resources for identifying reliable news sources. 

“I think in the years to come, as information is so plentiful, we are going to return to trusted news figures — those figures of integrity and truth and fact — who will help us navigate the complex world in which we operate. Joan Lunden and Julie Chapman are in the best tradition of trusted arbiters of fact and viewpoint.”

Chapman, who herself was inspired by Lunden’s trailblazing career in a male-dominated news industry, asked Lunden about her early career, beginning in 1973, and the challenges she faced. 

Lunden recalled how, upon graduating from college, a family friend told her she should think about television news. 

“To which I said, ‘To do what?’ Because it was all white male, full stop. At that time, you think of Huntley, Brinkley, Walter Cronkite. The only woman you could probably think of is Barbara Walters, who was on the ‘Today Show.’” 

At the time, the National Organization of Women had been petitioning the Federal Communications Commission, which consequently put pressure on local stations to hire women, Lunden said. She read copy for a news director who didn’t have an open position to fill, but KCRA-TV weatherman Harry Geise saw her audition and offered to make her Sacramento’s first weather girl.  

“The conversation inside my head was, ‘That sounds totally uninteresting, and I don't know anything about the weather,’” Lunden said. “However, my mother fortunately had taught me to recognize an opportunity when I heard it, so I said yes.” 

She moved up from weather reporter to consumer reporter to anchor, then moved to New York City and became a street reporter and anchor for Eyewitness News.  

Fast-forward to 1979 and the invitation to co-host “Good Morning America.” 

“I got the call right before we were going on the air (at Eyewitness News). I remember it was my agent who said, ‘We just got the call from ABC. They’re going to take you full time.’ And inherent in that is you’re going to be the next co-host. I was like, ‘Oh my God, great! I’ll call you after the show. I have to finish my story.’ And like 20 minutes later, my phone rang again, and it was my gynecologist: ‘Congratulations! You’re pregnant with your first child.’ I never ever had the thought of ‘bummer, bad timing.’ I immediately just thought, ‘I’ve got to figure out how to do this.’” 

Congress had just passed legislation in 1978 prohibiting employment discrimination based on pregnancy. Lunden brought her 7-week-old to the GMA set, where ABC gave her the dressing room next to hers for “Baby Jamie.” 

Lunden said she was not, however, treated as an equal “co-host” with GMA personality David Hartman, and it wasn’t until Charlie Gibson arrived in 1987 that the dynamic would shift. 

Barbara Walters’ advice to Lunden in the early 1980s was to not “fight” for equality, but rather to take every small assignment she was given and make it a gem. By doing so, she would be recognized and would advance.  

“I used that advice,” Lunden said — as well as Walters’ winning strategy of writing “thank-you” notes.

In her memoir, Lunden shares more lessons learned from more than five decades in the public eye and the pivotal experiences that shaped her life beyond. She writes about the death of her father when she was 13, finding the love of her life in her second marriage and having two sets of twins through surrogacy, battling breast cancer and becoming a powerful advocate for women as she posed bald on the cover of People magazine, and testifying on Capitol Hill on behalf of numerous causes, among many other examples of reinvention and compassion. 

“I always feel the meaning of life is learning, the lesson is love, and we’re here to help each other,” Chapman said. “And I feel in this memoir, you’ve proven that you’ve done that.” 

In fielding questions from parents seeking advice for their students as they prepare for life beyond college, Lunden acknowledged how far the news industry has come in terms of equality, but also the pervasive threats of misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated content. 

“We’re at an incredibly precarious time in this country when it comes to news and broadcasting, where anybody can start a blog or a website and call themselves a news service when they’re not, and when nothing’s being researched and fact-checked,” she said. “But I would still say that for young people who are really interested in going into broadcasting, they should pursue it, because we need young people who are really centered in integrity, who are grounded, and who are passionate about democracy to pursue the profession.”

Like the smile she brought to American viewers’ households each morning, her outlook remains sunny. 

“I’m a very positive person. My mom was an effusive, positive person. Some of my friends were like, ‘What, were you raised by Gandhi?’ I said, ‘Close!’ But I think that if we look at history, there’s tended to be a pendulum back and forth on a societal level. So I’m hopeful that we will see that pendulum swing back.” 

Lunden praised Skidmore for its supportive campus environment. 

“The kindness of Saratoga and the kindness of this campus and the atmosphere here, I think, is incredibly important in a world where there is a lot of negativity. So my hats off to President Conner, to all the professors who take this attitude toward their students, because it’s so important.”