Linda Ellerbee first achieved recognition as a national political reporter, then as the Emmy award-winning anchor of NBC News Overnight and ABC’s Our World. After leaving the networks, Ellerbee and partner Rolfe Tessem began Lucky Duck Productions in 1987 by producing episodes of Smithsonian World for PBS. In 1992, after producing several children’s specials for Nickelodeon, the idea for a weekly news magazine show for kids was born. “I wanted a show that encouraged kids to think and to question,” Ellerbee said. Nick News, now in its twentieth year, has won every award traditionally associated with adult programming, including three Peabody Awards (plus a personal one for Ellerbee and Nick News’ coverage of the Clinton investigation), a duPont Columbia Award and eight Emmys, including the 2010 Emmy The Face of Courage: Kids Living with Cancer. Also in 2009, Nick News received the Edward R. Murrow Award for best Network News Documentary, making history as the first-ever kids’ television program to receive this prestigious award. A breast cancer survivor, Ellerbee travels thousands of miles each year giving inspirational speeches to others. She is as direct with women as she is with kids; they understand that she understands their lives.
TOPICS
Health Care from the Patient’s Perspective
Ellerbee shares personal accounts of her experiences with breast cancer – from doing research, asking questions and taking part in making decisions about her own health care as an empowered consumer, to the determination and spirit that have made her a survivor for over 19 years, while acknowledging how important caregivers and health care providers were to her recovery.
How to Survive a Changing World & How to Change Your World
Ellerbee gives her rules for surviving a changing world with the heart intact – from surviving breast cancer to climbing mountains, from overcoming obstacles to making a noise. In her life and in her career, Ellerbee has learned that change is the norm.
Adventures in Journalism
From newspapers to networks, she’s gone from covering fires and parades to presidential debates and international terrorism, and collected some of the most prestigious awards along the way. Ellerbee talks about her experience as a veteran journalist.
How to Raise Media-Savvy Kids
In the future, our kids will either learn to use the media that surround them as tools, or they will be tools of that media. Television, the Internet, Smartphones, iPads – what’s next? And what is media literacy today, and how do we teach it? Ellerbee offers insight and perspective gained from speaking with (and listening to) kids for nearly 20 years on the critically acclaimed children’s television series, Nick News, and from raising two media-savvy kids of her own.
Kids, Television, and the News
Ellerbee talks about her journey to producing children’s television – how she created Nick News, her long-running series on Nickelodeon and “what I’ve learned about children, television and the real world.”
PLEASE NOTE: THIS SPEECH MAY BE TAILORED FOR EDUCATION GROUPS. Ellerbee talks about how teachers can use television as a teaching tool and turn television from the enemy into the teacher’s friend.
How To Be Successful and Hang Onto Your Values
How Ellerbee balanced having kids and building a career…or tried to. Ellerbee delivers her trademark wit and wisdom on everything from leaving the networks to starting her own company, from having a boss to being the boss.
Surviving Breast Cancer to Laugh Another Day
Ellerbee describes her experience with breast cancer – from the heartfelt yet amusing reactions of friends and colleagues, to the determination and spirit that make her a survivor for over 19 years.
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