Dressed in much the same way she has for most of the past 37 years on San Diego airwaves — dangling earrings, tailored jacket, chunky necklace, missing some shoulder pads that may or may have not made an appearance along the way — NBC 7 reporter Rory Devine sat down recently at the station's Del Mar conference room to look back on her four-decade career.
Along the way, Devine has reported thousands of San Diego stories — many of them leaning on her education as an educator — made hundreds of lifelong friends and taken home dozens of awards and official recognitions of her dedicated efforts benefitting her community.
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Growing Up
She’s cautious as the interview begins — she has a legacy to look back on and protect, but it’s not that. It seems more likely any anxiety is due to the tables being turned. Soon, though she warms to the story — her story — which starts in what was then a middle-class Boston suburb, Canton, Massachusetts (patriot Paul Revere and standup comic Bill Burr are other notables from her town).
Local
“I was born at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Boston," Devine said. "I'm one of seven. Dad’s a police officer, and he had seven kids with my mom. My mom was a homemaker. And I always say, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm Boston Irish-Catholic, my father's a cop. I'm one of seven, my name is Rosemary Christina Devine, and I went to Catholic school,” adding that she then spoke with a Boston accent she tried to lose while in college but sometimes slips out even now.
At the start, Devine's goals weren’t exactly pie-in-the-sky; for women coming of age as recently as the ‘70s, they weren’t unusual
“You know, when I grew up, I think I just wanted to go to college,” Devine said.
She was lucky, Devine said: Her hard-working parents (her dad also worked a second job and took every bit of overtime offered, while her mom helped her with her essays) would make sure she had the financial backing and emotional support to achieve that goal: to go to any college she wanted.
Eventually, her four sisters followed the well-trod path and three out of four became nurses. The other sister, a deputy town clerk. Her two brothers are successful in business; one is an engineer at Viasat and lives in Carlsbad.
“If I look at each member of my family, I can say every one of us has a great work ethic,” Devine said, an observation she won't make just the one time.
Rosemary went out to Indiana, where she thought, she was going to attend Notre Dame in South Bend, but, two years in, the brain trust backed out of a deal to merge the two schools. She received a diploma in 1975 from St Mary's College at Notre Dame, majoring in French, and English and Secondary Education.
Teaching Career
The path gets no straighter now. Devine goes back to Canton and gets a job in … jewelry sales. If that's not disheartening enough, she quit after a “Me Too" moment, moving out west with her Notre Dame boyfriend, Jim, and took a job at Pomona Girls Catholic High School.
“And I taught social and moral guidance,” Devine said, punctuating the memory with a wry smile.
Unbeknown to Devine, her degree from St. Mary’s came with a teaching credential that allowed her to work in public schools in California. So, after a year at the private school in Pomona, she began teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“I taught there three years, at Locke High School,” Devine said of the school, which is in Watts, in South Central Los Angeles. “I would not have given up that experience for anything in the world, even to get an earlier jump-start on my journalism career. I'm still in touch with some of the students.”
While teaching at Locke, Devine started attending USC in order to fulfill her teaching-credential requirement. Next, a few more twists:
“I needed to get more credits in English to make my credential whole, so I applied to USC,” Devine said. “I got into USC, and I thought, ‘I'll do journalism.’ I don't totally remember. I also worked for a newspaper because I must have wanted to be a journalist at some level, because I worked for a newspaper for a little while.… So, I went to USC at night while teaching at Locke during the day. On the weekends, I was a teaching assistant at USC to cover tuition. After getting my master's in broadcast journalism, I took a leave of absence from Locke High School and got a job in San Luis Obispo [at a TV station], just to see if I liked it, and I loved it.”
A Pivot to Journalism
Around TV newsrooms these days, there are still quite a few veterans who remember shooting on video cassettes, DVC-Pro tapes, like that. Devine, though, is truly an OG; When she was starting out, one of the original so-called one-man bands, she shot on … film
“I anchored, and I did general assignment,” Devine said. “We did everything, you know? We shot our own film on a CP-16 camera, we cut our own film. When you’re at those small markets, you shoot for each other, you help each other edit, you stay up late with each other, you drive to their location so that you can shoot their standups for them. It's an incredible time. It’s the best time of my career.”
Like most TV reporters of that time, Devine yo-yo's across different markets in America — yes, there are shoulder pads involved; yes, there is a second guy named Jim from Notre Dame — at one point doing a stint in D.C., where, not for the first time, that famous empathy of Devine’s comes to the fore.
“I was a freelancer, and it was the first time I ever worked with union photogs who knew what they were doing --- but I didn't know what I was doing — so that was a problem,” Devine said with a laugh. “So, I have a lot of empathy for people who don't know what they're doing starting out. See: ‘I've been there. I know how you feel.’ So, I did that for a while. But it was a very difficult time because I was sick to my stomach when they didn't call me into work, and I was sick to my stomach with nerves when they did call me into work.”
It's another theme running through Devine's career: mentorship. Just ask NBC 7 reporter and weekend anchor Mari Payton, who said Rory taught her, foremost, about "Compassion. Compassion. Compassion. Compassion for the people she interviewed and passion about her storytelling. She treated every story, every person with respect."
Payton said there's little Devine won't do for her colleagues, highlighting one recent, extreme example.
"Rory would give you the shoes off her feet … literally," Payton said last week. "I was admiring her shoes recently and she took them off and gave them to me … and drove home barefoot."
Finally, Payton offered a peak behind Devine's professional curtain.
"She is funny as hell and generous," Payton said. "The first to host a going-away or baby shower at her home and the best toaster, although we differ in our favorite type of white wine. She’s elegant and classy, and it comes through in her personal and professional life every day."
It was in Washington that Devine honed her peerless work ethic; she admires hard workers and has always strived to be one herself.
“I’m a girl who needs a job,” the nearly 70-year-old said without a hint of a smile.” Every day. Get up. Go to your job. Go pursue your career. I was in — really in — over my head. So, I thank all the people from WTTG who were patient with me.“
But that yo-yo’s calling again, this time pulling Devine all the way back across the country, leading, this time, to perhaps her most embarrassing TV REPORTER story.
The career demands sacrifice in your relationships, Devine said — or at least it did when Devine was trying to break into broadcast news.
“Jim and I didn’t make it, that was difficult,” Devine said. “And the career thing was difficult too, so I left my job at WTTG, came back to Los Angeles, lived with my girlfriend, Ida, and her husband, Brian — and I hate to say this, I lived with them for three years. Now, that’s embarrassing, but they took care of me.”
Now, easily, this could have been the time for Devine to give up.
“I remember another friend said, ‘If I were you, I'd go back to teaching,’ but I was so committed,” Devine said. “ 'No, no, I'm not. I love teaching, too, but I want to do this. I want to do this.' So, I just sent out resumes, sent out tapes.”
Arriving at Her NBC 7 Home
And then one of her lifelong SLO besties, Karen Dalton, stepped up.
“Karen got a job [at KCST, which is now NBC 7] while we were all in San Luis Obispo, as a reporter who also did the weather, ” Devine recalled, and soon — the exact date has been lost to the ages — and all the dominos fell, sort of...
“She said, ‘Come visit me. Bring a tape.’ " Devine recalled. "I said, 'OK.' I didn't have any tapes left because I'd sent them all out. The doorbell rang at Ida’s house. Some station had rejected me and sent back a tape, so I drove down to San Diego with tape in hand, and I had an interview with the news director.”
So, Devine freelanced at KHJ in Los Angeles Monday through Friday, and then drove down to San Diego and freelanced for KCST Saturday and Sunday.
“I worked seven days a week for a long time, driving back and forth until I was offered a full-time job in San Diego,” Devine said.
For a year. Hard worker.
Devine Does Diego
First day on the job? Nothing happened. Devine just drove around all day waiting on a breaker, which never happened.
Forty-plus years, all tolled. A career later, how does Devine think of herself?
“Something I say: ‘I'm a reporter for NBC,’ “ Devine said. “ ‘Yeah, you're a reporter?’ ‘I'm a reporter.’ ”
That’s the simple question to ask. The hard one to answer is, why are you good at your job?
“Reflexively, I want to say I hope I'm good at my job,” Devine said. “I think there are two reasons: One is that I'm the hardest worker I know. I never give up. If I can’t get something one way, I try another way, until the deadline is on me. One thing they say about me is, ‘If Rory can't get it, then it can't be gotten.‘ My husband always says, ‘You're an amazing lateral thinker.’ ”
“I think the other thing that makes me good at my job is that I like people," Devine said. "I don't think I started out being compassionate, but, certainly, over the years, you learn compassion, right? You learn empathy. The older I've gotten, the better a reporter I've become because I bring life experience and the compassion and empathy for others that come with that. Knowing, you know? Being a mom, knowing, or at least having some idea of the loss a mother may be enduring or, as a mom, going to a graduation, seeing the kids graduate, knowing what that's like for the family, for the kids. These are not just stories for me.”
Even the most herculean of workers, though, hit a wall, and being a TV reporter requires one to brush up against tragedy with regularity.
But even the toughest can bend.
Devine recalled the stories of Amber Dubois and Chelsea King, two young girls kidnapped and murdered in 2010. They were the same age as Devine’s son at the time.
“I remember sitting there and interviewing Chelsea King's mom and dad, and they were talking about how Chelsea was receiving her acceptance letters to college, and that Chelsea’s friends were coming over to say hello to them because Chelsea had been planning to go to prom too," Devine said. "Well, my son was also going to the prom. My son was also applying to colleges at the time. It was too close. That was a very difficult time for me. Well, for everybody. Right? Everybody. I remember looking behind me at [NBC 7 photographer Mark Leimbach, who is also retiring, and seeing that he was crying. And I tried not to cry in front of the Kings clearly, because they were so composed so much of the time. But it was hard, and Amber Dubois’ mom, that was hard too, she is so lovely. So I remember waking up one morning and saying, ‘I don't want to go to work because if I have to interview the Kings again, I don't know if I can do it.' I didn't want to call in sick, but I didn't want to get assigned. As it turned out Artie Ojeda, who was friends with the Kings, did most of the story. Hard for him too because he knew the Kings through their children.”
Looking back across the decades, Devine believes people misunderstand one of journalism’s core elements and, perhaps, more important, what journalists get out of dedicating their lives to what, for many, is an invisible or thankless task.
“I think a lot of people outside journalism don't understand that people want to tell their stories,” Devine said. “They hope something good will come out of it. If it's a drunk-driving story, if it's a don't-forget-to-wear-your-seatbelt story, if it's an inspirational story or a health-related story, people want to tell those stories. And we want to help them tell their stories because their stories can make a difference for someone watching.”
Devine’s fingerprints are on dozens of projects and stories, even, at one time on the NBC 7 anchor desk, but one certainly stands out among her efforts, at least down at the San Diego County Board of Ed.
“I can't remember how it started,” Devine said about the long-running Inspirational Student and Inspiration Teacher of the Month series. “The County Office of Education was really instrumental in organizing all that. They made it happen. And I have to say, those were my favorite, some of my favorite days. We shot both stories on the same day, and then I had another whole day to write them at my leisure. We had a lot of good laughs in those in those classrooms, and we cried too. Some of the students worked hard to get their 4.6 or higher GPAs while doing everything else at school, too. ‘Do you ever sleep?’ I would ask them. Some of the students jumped over extraordinary hurdles just to make it to school with the dream of graduating and going to college."
"Some people worry about the fate of our children, they worry about test scores and graduation rates. Let me assure you after meeting so many great students and wonderful teachers, all will be well. Applaud for them, clap for them, because we have some great kids and some fabulous teachers. That makes me feel positive.”
Looking Ahead, and Back
Taking stock, Devine took time to offer some unsolicited advice for those just getting into the news game now.
“Be yourselves: Just be your authentic self. I think sometimes I might have been too authentic, too real on occasion,” Devine said, laughing, “but when I was, I thought, 'Oh, I wish I hadn’t said that,' or 'I shouldn't have acted that way,' or whatever, and I thought, ‘Well, that's Rory, that's Rory’s authentic self.' Be your authentic self — and, OK, maybe be a little less sometimes.”
Any final words for those of us in San Diego who have benefited from nearly four decades of Rory’s authentic self?
“You know, as I look back, I think to myself: ‘I wish I had been kinder to ‘somebody.’ ” Devine said. “I'm a little bit of a bulldog on deadline, remember, so I don't always know how I come off because I have so much energy — energy under stress! Now that’s a combination! I hope I haven't really hurt anybody. That's what I think. If I hurt, you, I'm sorry. If you called, and I didn't get back to you, I’m sorry. “
“I would tell the viewers, first of all: Thank you for letting me into your lives and into your homes, and into your hearts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for sharing your stories with me so that I could share them with others. Thank you for reminding me to always be grateful. I would say: Here’s one great big hug and thank you to all our viewers. My viewers, if you will. I will always remember you and be forever grateful to you.”
We would also like to recognize three other longtime NBC 7 employees who are retiring — Ed.
- Fely Parker has been with NBC 7 since 1982. Fely has worked at just about every job in production and most recently worked as an automated production control operator.
- Mark Leimbach has worked at NBC 7 as a photojournalist since 1988
- Steve Marshall has worked as a story producer/editor at NBC 7 since 1997
You may not recognize the names and faces of these behind-the-scenes folks, but you definitely know their work. Bringing you the news every day is a team effort, and we couldn’t do it without their hard work. Fely, Mark and Steve: We will not only miss your talents, we will miss your big hearts as well. One thing that makes NBC 7 so special is the people, and you are three of the best! Thank you for all of the years you dedicated to your careers and the San Diego community. Now go enjoy your retirement! Congrats!
