With a love of news and a passion for the weather, Seven journalist Angie Asimus has found her dream job. Tamara Spray goes behind the scenes to look at life as a television reporter.
It’s Sunday night, and when I switch on Channel Seven news and Angie Asimus tells me the weather is going to be a sunny 18 degrees tomorrow, I’m relieved. Our North Shore Living cover shoot is set for an outdoor area the following morning at The Palms in Terrey Hills, one of Angie’s favourite eateries, and with booming storms having circled all weekend, it’s good to know conditions will be settled for our Monday morning photo session.
True to her word, I meet broadcast journalist Angie on a beautiful winter’s morning, and the Belrose local is exactly as she appears on the TV screen: delightful, friendly and intelligent.
She’s so easy-going in fact, that I’m quick to let Angie know that the weather segment, which she delivers alongside nightly news presenters Mark Ferguson and Angela Cox, is a must-watch in our house each evening.
“I get a lot of really good feedback about how important the (weather) segment is,” Angie, 39, says. Despite weather apps, a lot of people still source their forecast from the nightly news, she adds. “So many people say they hang on until the end (of the news) because they like how it’s presented – it’s comprehensive and explained. You can look at your phone app and it might look like it’s raining all day. Whereas we’ll say, ‘If it rains, it’ll be on the coast and it’ll only be in the morning.’ And I think people love that. That’s what you need – that detail.”
Michael Usher and Angie co-anchor 7News on weekends
The respected journalist has been with Channel Seven for 17 years, with her career having spanned the Townsville, Brisbane and now-Sydney newsrooms. In that time, Angie has covered everything, from the crime beat, court reporting, world events and breaking news.
More recently, her regular role as weather presenter on Seven expanded last October to include co-anchoring the 6pm weekend news editions with colleague Michael Usher on Friday and Saturday evenings – a ‘next chapter’ she describes as ‘a dream come true.’ “I’m loving being more involved in the news again, which was my background from the beginning, so it’s been wonderful,” she says.
Angie and Michael had worked together for many years in the newsroom and knew each other quite well, which Angie says makes their partnership on the desk an ‘easy transition.’
Even so, the pressure of presenting news live on air as it breaks is something she describes as a ‘real challenge’ for the co-anchors. “Especially when something is unfolding and we are learning at the same time as the viewer,” Angie says. “Those sorts of broadcasts, they’re not polished at our end. We’re figuring it out as we go as well. That’s a real test of skills because you don’t get to go back to your desk and write a script and go to the voiceover booth. It’s just reacting to what you see and trying to articulate that, while making sure it’s accurate.”
The high-pressure environment is what drew Angie towards journalism to start with. But it wasn’t her first career choice, as the self-confessed country girl grew up thinking she’d like to be a vet. Having lived much of her early life on a sheep and cattle farm in Gundagai, a childhood she describes as ‘magical,’ Angie was keen to work with animals. But after moving to Narrabeen at age 13 with her family, she soon discovered that her love of writing outweighed her love of maths.
While a student at Brigidine College in St Ives, she did work experience at the former Seven studio in Martin Place. “Once I set foot in there, I just thought ‘This is it,’” she recalls. “I just loved the buzz of the newsroom. (The reporters) weren’t sitting at a desk all day, they were in and out meeting people and then coming back and crafting a story for the news.
“Certain elements of it wouldn’t suit everyone, but I love the daily deadline. I love working towards something, doing the best you can with the timeframe you have. And then at the end of it, that’s all you can do and you move onto the next day.”
Angie studied media and communications at Sydney University, and at the end of her degree she did a week of work experience at Seven in Maroochydore, Queensland. “I started on the Monday and on Wednesday the news director said, ‘A job’s come up in Townsville – do you want it?’ It was pretty sudden, but I didn’t hesitate. I was finishing university that month, so it was all perfect. And within a few weeks I had bought a one-way ticket to Townsville, which was very different to anywhere I’d lived.”
Angie remembers landing at 8pm, walking out of the airport to be hit with an intense midday-type heat, despite it being night-time. She recalls thinking ‘How am I going to do this?’
She soon acclimatised to the tropical climate and began covering ‘wild news’ like cyclones and crocodiles. “It was an amazing time and that’s what actually started my love of weather, funnily enough, because of the incredible weather systems.”
After 18 months in Townsville, Angie moved to the Brisbane newsroom, where she found herself covering the 2011 floods extensively, before being offered a position presenting the weekend weather. She jumped at the chance, and completed a graduate certificate in climatology, learning about synoptic charts, long-term climate drivers like El Niño and how climate adapts to changing weather patterns. “It helped me understand the science so that I could break it down in the news,” she says.
If you think being a weather presenter is just reading out a few numbers, think again. Angie’s weather forecasts are extensively researched behind the scenes. She spends time putting together the map graphics; checks images from the Channel Seven helicopter; sources records, temperatures and weather events, all to ‘best illustrate the weather of the day.’
“Because I’m a journalist and I’ve studied the weather, I’ve tried to combine the science with the written word. I try to break down the information and think of a way to present it that will be most useful to people,” the reporter explains.
“People don’t really need me to stand there and say ‘It’s 22 degrees tomorrow.’ I think what they want is a bit more nuance and detail about how the whole day will unfold.”
One fan of the weather forecast is Angie’s son, Austin, five. “He’s really interested in the weather because he knows I do that!” she says. “He often asks me about what’s coming up.” Angie and her husband Chris also have two-year-old Scarlett, who arrived before forecasted – shortly after a weather report!
The journalist, here on assignment, loves daily deadlines
Angies’s children, Austin and Scarlett, were part of a 7News baby boom
Angie and Chris share parenting duties
Angie’s pregnancy was followed by viewers, with Scarlett’s arrival making the news. “Michael (Usher) was reading the news at the time and he said, ‘Well, we did have a bunch of flowers to give Angie, but instead we can show you pictures of the baby,’” she laughs.
In fact, Austin and Scarlett were part of a baby boom in the newsroom, with a number of Angie’s collegues pregnant around the same time. “It was really lovely to go through the pregnancy with other women in the newsroom because it’s a strange job to go to when your body’s changing so rapidly,” she says. “It’s a visual medium, so it’s all out there on show for people to see.”
Chris works in the golfing industry and they both share care of the children. As Angie often starts work at midday, and is home for bedtime after the 6pm bulletin, she has time with the children in the mornings. “I’ve become a lot more efficient at time management and just make it work,” she says, explaining she really tries to be ‘in the moment’ when she’s with Austin and Scarlett.
Having children has brought greater significance to her role as an ambassador of Act for Kids, an organisation which helps abused and neglected children. “I became an ambassador before I had kids and every day it becomes more meaningful. Now I realise how vulnerable they are,” she says.
With Seven a supporter of the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation, Angie often attends fundraisers and covers stories on families of sick children and medical breakthroughs, something she describes as ‘always inspiring.’
And when she’s not on the news, Angie returns to her other love – the country – delivering a podcast profiling farmers across the nation called Australian Farmers: Telling Our Story. She approached the National Farmers Federation with the idea four years ago and is now producing season four. “The podcast is not just for people in the country, it’s for people in the city to learn more about where their food and fibre comes from,” she explains.
The podcast is very topical, and features farmers from across the nation, like a young couple in Queensland who have a booming Christmas tree and gift store business; and even goes behind the egg-shortage crisis, delving into how the Avian flu affected farmers. “I wanted to show
off what our farmers are actually doing,” she says, adding that many of her interviewees are young, well-educated, tech savvy farmers. “Just being able to showcase that and surprise people has been really rewarding for me.”
As we near the end of our interview at The Palms, I ask Angie what it’s like to have people approach her for a chat. “It’s really lovely to meet our viewers because we’re just talking to a camera, so we don’t get to see everyone face-to-face. So it’s always nice.” Given that Angie has lived on the Beaches for most of her life, she is able to get around without too much recognition. “It’s just that I’ve lived in the area for a long time now, so I think I’m probably part of the furniture!”
You can catch Angie on 7News nightly at 6pm.