Angie Goff: A Multi-Talented TV Anchor
By Charlene Giannetti
Angie Goff is a multi-media personality with multiple roles. She’s the early morning weekend anchor for NBC4, writes a popular blog called OMG (Oh My Goff), does more than her fair share of public appearances to support local causes, takes care of her two year-old daughter, Adora, while expecting her second child, a boy, who will be named Bob. So how does she manage it all?
She laughs. “As you can see, I was 30 minutes late for our interview, so obviously I’m not doing a great job.” Full disclosure: Angie was ready but since her cellphone was turned off, she missed the call. Her self-effacing personality and her ability to laugh at herself is one reason she connects so readily with her audience, on the air and online. And she anchors at the perfect time to make that connection, the early morning hours when so many young mothers in the D.C. area are beginning the day and looking towards role models for inspiration.
Angie wears that mantle lightly, eager to dismiss the notion that she has all the answers. “I have a lot of debates with myself; I think a lot of women do,” she says. “For a while with my daughter, my first child, I really made an effort to make it look like I could do it all and that I could have it all. Then six months into being a mom, trying to work fulltime and balancing a career and still maintaining my sanity, it became reality that you just can’t.”
Like most new mothers, Angie says she failed to make herself a priority. “Now I realize that I need that time out; I need to feel good about myself in order to take care of my daughter and then everything else will fall into place,” she says. Another important lesson was learning to say no to some of the many requests she receives.
Besides anchoring the early morning newscast, Angie serves as the station’s breaking news reporter manning the morning show’s Live Desk during the week. “I cover everything from the latest bombing in Pakistan to the first peek at Kate Middleton’s bump,” she explained. “I break in with anything big that comes down the wire throughout the show. It’s pretty intense.”
Angie gets up at 2:30 a.m. and is in the studio by 3:30 a.m. She is usually home by noon and gets to spend some time with Adora. “I make an effort even in the rain to get outside with Adora every day, even walking to go to breakfast on my days off,” she says. “Those two days [with her] are so valuable.”
Besides her TV work, Angie finds time to write her blog. “Early on I realized blogging and an online component to what we do in broadcast was important,” she explains. “It started out as a fun little side project. A former TV colleague of mine emailed me one day with some fun news starting with `Oh My Goff!’ and that was it. I knew I had to use that phrase some where.”
Her one rule is that the blog would never become a chore. “I write when I have time. There’s never a set time. It could be 4:45 a.m. or eleven at night!”
She characterizes the blog as a “behind-the-scene” look at what stories she filmed that day for her newscast. A lover of social media, Angie often posts about technology. Other topics include the community events she attends and thoughts about parenting. “My writings about my daughter get a lot of attention,” she says. “It seems like so many can relate.”
Finding that work-family balance is back in the headlines and Angie and her husband, Robert Ellis, exemplify how each couple needs to work out a solution. While Angie’s career is in Washington, her husband’s pediatric dental practice is based in Columbia, South Carolina, where he lives. “I never have asked him to move [his practice] here and he’s never asked me to stay in South Carolina, either,” she says. (Angie met Robert when she anchored and reported for WIS-TV in Columbia, where she won an Emmy.) “We both respect how important and how happy both of our professions make us. We have found a travel plan that works. It’s become our lifestyle and `our normal.’ It can be hard and we miss each other terribly at times, but I will tell you that we cannot recall a missed opportunity when it comes to being with each other. We always maximize that time because it is so special.”
Angie’s parents live nearby in Virginia and provide that day-to-day support system that is so valuable. “I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without the incredible support I get from my husband and my family that lives close by,” she says. “If you don’t have that, it’s even harder.”
Angie was born in Korea and last visited in 1995. “It’s a goal to bring my husband back there; he loves Korean food,” she says. Now with a new baby on the way, Angie says the family trip has been put on hold for a while. In the meantime, she works hard, with help from her mother, to keep Adora in touch with her heritage. Recently she purchased wooden blocks with the Korean characters on them. “Adora speaks in English, but she knows some Korean words because my mom has talked with her so much,” she says.
Angie’s baby is due I early June and she plans to spend some of her maternity leave in South Carolina. Even though she’s looking forward to some time off, she has no doubt that she will be ready to return to work. “I love working for the NBC family. They are the gold standard: I feel very blessed to be part of it,” she said. “For me, the schedule I have is perfect. It allows me to have a personal life and a successful career. I’m not ready to change a thing.”
Charlene Giannetti is the Editor of Woman Around Town, an online resource for women in the Washington D.C. and New York Metropolitan areas, where this article also appears. www.womanaroundtown.com
For Your Information:
Angie Goff’s blog – Oh My Goff
http://ohmygoff.tv/
DC Working Moms
Connect with more than 700 working moms in the DC area.
http://www.dcworkingmoms.com
Simplify your life with these tips and suggestions.
https://www.washingtonfamily.com/page/Simplify-Your-Life
Looking to relax. Try these ideas for after the kids go to bed spa treatments.
https://www.washingtonfamily.com/page/After-The-Kids-Go-To-Bed-Spa-Night
