Alison Starling Greets Each Day with a 3 a.m. Wakeup, a Warm Smile ...and 3 alarm clocks

Photo by Yvonne Taylor/for Local Kicks "Alison has it. You just like her," said ABC7 anchor Leon Harris, a longtime veteran of CNN. "She has a special energy, a genuineness. She’s the real deal, and add to that a work ethic."

By Eleanor Herman Dyment and Teri Shulman

If female news anchors are known for great looks, layered hair and Clorox white teeth, Alison Starling doesn’t disappoint.
 
She’s tall and thin, with melting dark eyes.  She has a slender, perfectly chiseled nose that many women would gladly pay $50,000 for, and perfectly shaped lips that might cost the rest of us hundreds of dollars in Restylane injections.
 
"Alison has it. You just like her," said ABC7 anchor Leon Harris, a longtime veteran of CNN. "She has a special energy, a genuineness. She’s the real deal, and add to that a work ethic."
 
For the past six years Starling has graced Washington television on weekdays from the wee hours of the morning until lunchtime. Starling, who lives in Old Town, joined ABC 7 News after stints in Seattle and Chattanooga.  
 

Photo Courtesy of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation ABC7's Brian Van de Graff called Starling "laid-back, cool, and very down to earth...She doesn’t like to wear make-up. At a Juvenile Diabetes event we were hosting, a woman told Alison she looked good that evening, but she should fire her regular make-up artist because she looked terrible on the news. Well, Alison does her own makeup for the news."

Harris said his relationship with Alison goes back to 1997 when she sent him a reel of her work and asked for advice on improving her on-camera skills. "I figured you have to treat people right because in this business you never know when you will find yourself working with them," Harris said."In 2003, I came here to DC from Atlanta.  Imagine my surprise when I walked into the lobby the first day and there she was.  When we co-anchored the news for the first time, it was like we belonged together."
 
Starting in 2005, Alison anchored the 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. shows, for 14 months, which Harris likened to "a kind of Bataan Death March."  
 
"Nobody had ever done that grueling schedule for more than a week," Harris said. "And she did it with a smile every day.  But she possesses a genuine warmth, a down-to-earth realness that the superficial newscaster stereotypes don’t have."
 
Alison has channeled this warmth into the Big Sister program, mentoring three girls who needed a bit of extra attention, and has served on the Big Brothers Big Sisters National Capital Area Board for four years.  In February, she was named the Big Sister of the Year and was honored last month at its June awards dinner.
 
"Alison is one of the things that gets me out of bed at three a.m." said co-anchor Doug McKelway. "If I had to work with a prima donna or anchor monster, I couldn’t do it.  You never get used to this schedule; it takes a real toll on your body.  We all understand how sleep deprivation can be used as torture, which is why it’s so great that Alison is such a pleasure to be around.  She’s a very quiet leader and approaches problems from a positive way.  She’s kind.  She’s genuine.  And she’s one of the guys."
 
Add to Alison’s looks and kindness a dogged devotion to her job.  Let’s face it: You’d have to be completely dedicated to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed doing live television each morning at five a.m.  
 
"We drive to work a bit past 3 a.m., and since there aren’t any other cars on the road, and we’re all bleary-eyed, sometimes it’s easy to go a few miles over the speed limit," said morning meteorologist Brian Van de Graaff. "It’s not like you have other cars to make you aware of your speed.  Well, one morning Alison was pulled over by a cop and let off with a warning.  Of course.  Alison gets warnings, while Doug and I get actual tickets when we speed to work in the dark.  Anyway, two days later she was pulled over again, and instead of showing the officer her registration, she was so sleepy that she pulled out her warning ticket and handed it to him.  He took one look at it and said, “Ma’am, are you trying to mess with me?”  She was let off with a warning, again.  Of course."
 
Van de Graff called Starling "laid-back, cool, and very down to earth...She doesn’t like to wear make-up.  At a Juvenile Diabetes event we were hosting, a woman told Alison she looked good that evening, but she should fire her regular make-up artist because she looked terrible on the news.  Well, Alison does her own makeup for the news."
 
Recently, we sat down with Alison to find out what makes her tick, and what gets her out of bed so bloomin' early.

Courtesy of WJLA "I don’t have children of my own, and I find being a Big Sister to be a very rewarding, hands-on experience where you can really see the difference you’re making," Alison said. "Of course, it’s not always easy. My little sister is 13 now, a rough age, so I’m trying my best to be a good role model to her. We do homework. We talk. We go to the movies. We’re going to the circus this weekend. Sometimes I go to her school during recess to work on homework. Sometimes I pick her up at home on the weekend and take her someplace fun."

Let’s talk about your schedule. You get up before 3 a.m.?
 
I have three alarms, just in case.  I get up a little before three, and I arrive to work a little before four.  I have an hour to read newspapers, go over scripts, talk to the producers about what’s coming up on the show, and do my hair and makeup.  I’m on the air live from five to seven a.m. straight, and then from seven to nine we do local updates during Good Morning America every half hour.  I also anchor the noon news.
 
How do you get up that early every work day?
 
I usually go to bed around 8 p.m., and I don’t let a lot of things come between me and my sleep.  If I’m exhausted, millions of people will see it.  Even more important, I need a good night’s sleep in order to be mentally on top of my game.  I need to be prepared for rolling with the punches when things are changing on live TV.  The wake-up time is the only downside to my job.  
 
I love working with Brian (Van de Graaff, the meteorologist) and Doug (McKelway, the morning co-anchor).  I don’t think any of us could do this job looking at the faces of people we can’t stand at four o’clock in the morning.  It’s already hard to get yourself motivated at that hour, and it would be so much harder if you didn’t like each other. We laugh a lot and are very supportive of each other professionally and personally.  We know each other’s families and do a lot together on a social basis.
 
As a single woman, doesn’t that crazy schedule hurt your social life?
 
I’ve been very strict about getting enough sleep, which has hampered my social life in some ways in the past.  I have a boyfriend, and though I have a very unusual schedule, I’ve made it work.  I have weekends off, which is great.

In third grade you already knew that you wanted to be in the news business.  What was it that attracted you?
 
I remember thinking that it would be really exciting to know things before everyone else knew them and to help disseminate that information.  So I started doing the school announcements in sixth grade, and I kept following that path.  As I got older, I recognized that a news position offered a great deal of variety, that every day would be different.  When I come into work, I wonder, who am I going to interview today?  What’s the big story going to be?  How will I be challenged in telling that story well?  
 

Photo courtesy of KIRO TV/Seattle "Alison is one of the things that gets me out of bed at three a.m." said co-anchor Doug McKelway. "If I had to work with a prima donna or anchor monster, I couldn’t do it. You never get used to this schedule; it takes a real toll on your body."

In 2006 you took over Kathleen Matthew’s series, "Working Woman," which airs every other week on the 5 p.m. news.  How are you enjoying that?
 
I love it.  Working Woman covers outstanding women in our community who have truly inspirational stories of overcoming challenges or helping others.  I have met so many fantastic women that I feel very lucky to take over that very successful franchise from Kathleen and keep it alive.  It’s extremely popular.
 
Over the course of your news career, what stories have really impacted you?
 
The day of the Virginia Tech shootings, I was reporting from the set, anchoring the evening news.  People reporting from Blacksburg were obviously experiencing the story in a completely different way, but it was challenging for us here, too.  
 
We had to make sense of what was happening as the information was slowly coming in.  We were doing live television interviews with parents whose kids went to school there.  We realized what a huge tragedy it was and how many people were going to be affected.  I had to process emotionally what was happening while I was on the anchor set trying to present it in a calm and cohesive manner.  I will never forget that day.  
 
As far as reporting from the field, I was deeply moved the day the pope held a Mass at National Stadium.  Regardless of religious affiliation, it was amazingly uplifting.  So many people had come together with so much hope.
 
And I have been impacted by at least 50 Working Women.  The one I’m working on now is incredible.  She was Miss Wheelchair Maryland last year and was born with a really rare form of Muscular Dystrophy.  At the age of five, she was told she had a few years to live, and now she’s 36.  All the things that are so easy for us to do are very challenging for her, and yet she has this incredible attitude and is helping make life easier in DC for other people with disabilities.  I think about her all the time.  If I hit a bump in the road and feel I’m having a bad day, I just remember her challenges.  

What are your hobbies?
 
I love yoga.  I do that once a week and try to work out frequently.  I love to read, especially David Baldacci.  Right now I’m reading his Simple Genius. I’m a TiVO freak since all the good programs are on after I’m in bed.  When I get home from work in the afternoon I sometimes zip through shows I’ve TiVO'd.  I enjoy several restaurants -- Restaurant Eve and Overwood in Old Town, Redwood in Bethesda, and TenPenh in D.C.
 
When it comes to shopping, I’m not a huge clothes horse.  Whenever I emcee a fashion show, I bring e-mails people have written to me about my clothes and read them out loud.  Viewers write, “Alison, why are you wearing that burlap sack?”  It’s such a stitch that people in the audience die laughing.  
 
I never got into this business because I wanted to dress up and do my hair and makeup.  I got into it because I liked writing and journalism.   Unfortunately, in television you have to embrace the appearance part of it.  So over the years, I’ve tried to find what styles I feel the most confident in because I can’t perform my job if I am not comfortable with what I’m wearing.  I go for classic styles.  

Photo courtesy of KIRO TV/Seattle Alison Starling, in her early days on TV news, as part of an anchor team at KIRO TV (far left).

Tell me about your volunteering as a Big Sister.
 
My first broadcast job was in Chattanooga, TN., and that was the first place I had a Little Sister.  When I moved to Seattle, I had one there, too.  When I got here I got a new Little Sister, and I’ve had the same one for four years.  
 
I don’t have children of my own, and I find being a Big Sister to be a very rewarding, hands-on experience where you can really see the difference you’re making.  Of course, it’s not always easy.  My little sister is 13 now, a rough age, so I’m trying my best to be a good role model to her.  We do homework.  We talk.  We go to the movies.  We’re going to the circus this weekend.  Sometimes I go to her school during recess to work on homework.  Sometimes I pick her up at home on the weekend and take her someplace fun.  
 
What has your mentoring done for your Little Sister?
 
Mentoring can go so far in so many ways.  Not only does it help kids to achieve more academically, but it also helps with self-esteem.  It helps to have a friend outside of the family and the school environment, someone these kids know has their best interests at heart.  And those of us who had that while we were growing up take it for granted.  If you grew up with the support of loving people you might assume that all kids get that, but some of them don’t.
 
Has the Little Sister program been enriching for you, too?
 
Kids have this special way of bringing everything back to the basics, keeping it real.  When I’m getting worked up about something, it’s so much fun to pick her up and get ice cream, and talk about boys or what happened at school, because it just reminds me what is important in life.  
 
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the stress of the work day, and I’ve gotten so much out of having that free time with her and just laughing.  Some people might be afraid to get involved in the program because they see it as a big time commitment, but it’s really whatever you make it.  Kids aren’t expecting you to spend 20 hours a week with them.  They just want a little bit of your time, even if you just have an hour a week.  
 
Contact the writer at Teri301@aol.com