Q&A: Lisa Remillard on Leaving the Anchor Desk Behind for TikTok
In a recent TikTok video, Lisa Remillard, a/k/a “The News Girl,” told viewers that she had an update for them about a riveting topic: the federal debt ceiling. “The US is inching closer and closer to defaulting on our massive thirty-six trillion dollars of debt,” she said, leaning into the camera dramatically. This, she explained, “would have catastrophic consequences for not just the US government but also for you and me.”
The tone of the clip is breezy; throughout, Remillard maintains a placid smile, looking directly into the camera and punctuating important points with the kind of hand gestures I associate with the morning news. (Remillard was, in fact, a news anchor for more than fifteen years). It’s not exactly the kind of video for which TikTok is famous; there’s no choreography or Gen Z slang. Still there’s something in the vibe of the video that is unmistakably TikTok, with its casual jump cuts and slightly unpolished graphic overlays. To be successful on social media, Remillard explained to me recently, “you really have to understand the tone of the platform.”
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