All they expected me to do was rip and read the wire 'leads,' without doing any original reporting. It was pretty basic, but gave me a taste of how to combine my love of politics and broadcasting.
As a result, I was a logical choice to go to Rockefeller Center in New York City and take part in election-night coverage for the Ivy stations and their radio audiences from Dartmouth to Columbia.
As kids, we traded 'I like Ike' and 'All the way with Adlai' buttons in elementary school.
By the summer of my senior year, I'd found a part-time job at KYW, one of Philadelphia's top radio stations and one of the first in the country to broadcast 'all news, all the time.' It wasn't to report the news.
Finally, I told them I'd drop out of the management program if they'd give me an entry-level job in the newsroom for union wages, about fifty dollars a week.
I had interviewed Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, when he came to campus to give a campaign speech. He was patient and responsive, much to my surprise, given my youth and inexperience. Heady stuff.
I had to rip reams of wire reports spitting out from the old, clattering Teletype machines, then hang one copy on a nail in the wire room and distribute the others to the anchormen of each hour's newscast.
I have no idea how we organized the coverage, except that I was assigned to broadcast results of the Senate races.
I only got in the door because my mother had forced her daughters to learn typing and shorthand as fallback insurance against life's surprises, and the station needed a summer-relief secretary.
In between, I'd edit and transcribe the 'actualities'-that's what we called sound bites-from the interviews, and log incoming audio feeds from London and other Westinghouse bureaus.
Instead, they tried to steer me toward jobs more traditionally held by women, in public relations or advertising, which didn't interest me at all.
It was a presidential election year, and as a member of a consortium of Ivy League radio stations, we participated in 'network' coverage of election night.
My family was always interested in politics.
Once again, no one in charge had given any thought to the possibility that a woman would be involved.
Once we had our own television, I recall our parents watching the Army-McCarthy hearings, and being outraged by Joe McCarthy.
Owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting, KYW Newsradio dominated the market and had a sister television station that was an NBC affiliate.
Philadelphia reflected the national turmoil over race and the Vietnam War, often exploding on my watch.
Someday perhaps I'll have to get a grownup job... but for now I'm having too much fun being a reporter.
They put me on the shift where they thought I could do the least harm, midnight to eight in the morning. Although the hours were lousy, they were perfect for an apprentice reporter.
To get interviews for their newscasts, I'd work the phones, calling locations to find someone I could interview when a story broke.
When I entered college, it was to study liberal arts. At the University of Pennsylvania, I studied English literature, but I fell in love with broadcasting, with telling stories about other people's exploits.
When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.
With my Ivy League degree, I had talked my way into a job as a copyboy, which is what desk assistants were universally called in those days.
She is has been married to Alan Greenspan since 1997.
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