After working as an anchor in several markets around the country, including in Chicago at WMAQ, Robin Meade landed at CNN Headline News in 2001. Her first day on-air at the network: September 11th.

In the second part of mediabistroTV’s three-part “Media Beat” interview with Meade, the HLN anchor remembers what it was like working on 9/11, and also talks about the rise of opinion journalism since that historic day.

In the first part of mediabistroTV’s three-part “Media Beat” interview with HLN’s Robin Meade, the former WJW, WCMH, WSVN, and WMAQ anchor offers advice about making it in TV news.

“Don’t make the mistake of always looking for the next job,” Meade warns, “so much so that you’re not learning in your current position.”

Meade also talks about her music career and describes how she’s been able to maintain her 18-year marriage while working the crazy hours of a morning anchor.

Robin Meade has come a long way from the beginning of her television career at WFMD in Mansfield. The Ohio native, who worked her way up through local markets before landing her national gig on HLN’s “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” launched her music career this week with the release of her debut country album, “Brand New Day,” and an Independence Day concert today at Robins Air Force base in Georgia.

Meade grew up in New London, OH. “At the beginning, I think my goal was just to end up in Cleveland,” she told TVSpy. “That was the market I grew up watching. I idolized the on-air people — Robin Swoboda, who is still there today — I watched her in high school. She used to laugh out of turn. She was very authentic, especially for those times, in the sort of stuffed-shirt era of news anchors.”

Meade did eventually make it to Cleveland, where she was an anchor at WJW, but she was only there for nine months before WCMH in Columbus came calling. “They offered me twice as much money and two shows a day,” she said. “So I went there.” Meade would also anchor in Miami and Chicago before landing as the morning anchor at HLN. “By the time I left Ohio, I had seen the value of larger markets and new experiences. So I had learned to be prepared to move.” Read more