Why it was so hard for Zach Crenshaw to leave ABC 15
Zach Crenshaw knows that the moment is going to arrive.
Crenshaw left his job as a reporter and weekend anchor at ABC 15 in Phoenix in early August. He and his family are moving to northern Virginia, where he’ll work in crisis communication and media training.
Sounds like a good job, but someday a big story is going to break and the feeling is going to wash over him that washes over all journalists, past and present: I need to be working on this story.
“Yeah, I know, that’s gonna be a thing,” Crenshaw said. “And I have a feeling when, whether I’m watching local news out on the East Coast, or, you know, I see a headline or a notification pop up on my phone from ABC 15, there’s gonna be that, ‘Oh, man, I wish I was out in the field holding the microphone or working sources right now.’ … So yeah, there’s gonna be that level of kind of longing to be in the thick of it.”
Crenshaw started at ABC 15 in Phoenix in 2018
Crenshaw started at ABC 15 in 2018 after working in Memphis, Tennessee and South Bend, Indiana. He knows the rhythms of a newsroom.
“I think a newsroom is a unique place to work,” he said. “And there’s a level of when something major is happening, and everything’s firing on all cylinders — it’s such a chaotic but, like, adrenaline-rush feeling that you really enjoy it. So I think that is going to be hard. And I think with time, it’ll probably dissipate.
“But I definitely anticipate, you know, seeing certain stories and seeing headlines and thinking, man, I wish I was still in the game.”
So why leave the game at all? For the reason a lot of people cite when they leave a job (or a job leaves them and they’re trying to save face) — only Crenshaw sounds genuine about it: to spend more time with family.
Crenshaw and his wife have two young daughters. For local TV news reporters, the typical path forward goes in one of two directions: you become a local anchor or go to the network. Crenshaw decided he didn’t want to pursue either.
“Network, when I was first getting into the business, was always the
dream,” Crenshaw said. “So there was an element of me that still wanted to pursue that. But I have friends that work at the networks, and just what I’ve heard from them is, it’s a grind, in a way, that if you have a family you have to love the job — not more than you love your family, but you have to love the job so much that you are willing to miss birthdays and recitals and be on the road.”
That wasn’t something Crenshaw wanted to do.
“If you to tell your daughter we’re going to the zoo on Saturday and they call you Friday night and say, you know, there’s been X, Y or Z national story break, you get on the plane Saturday morning. So I just kind of took network off the table.”
Crenshaw felt similarly about becoming a weeknight anchor.
“I’ve seen a lot of main anchors, you know, worked alongside them, and also talked to them about what their life is like,” he said. “And I’ve had a lot of journalists tell me that they wish they wouldn’t have missed out on things. When I thought about that, I think there’s going to be … a level of regret.”
And he feels just a touch of that regret
at leaving an industry that’s facing major challenges.
Journalism ‘needs people who love it’
“I am not egotistical enough to think that I impact journalism that much,” Crenshaw said, “but I do feel like the industry needs people who love it and stay in it long term.”
And Crenshaw said he loved being a reporter.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, man, today’s the day, I just feel like I’m gonna get out.’ It wasn’t that,” he said. “It was more like coming to the realization that there’s life outside of a newsroom. And it’s something that I want to at least experience and see if it’s better for me and my family. Because I have a really good sense of what my life would be like if I stayed in.”
The actual process of walking away wasn’t easy.
‘It was tough to look my bosses in the eye’
“It was tough to look my bosses in the eye, who have supported me, they’ve promoted me at ABC 15, and been really supportive in the work I’ve done, and are good people,” Crenshaw said. “So yeah, it was difficult to actually walk away. And it was kind of a weird feeling.”
There was a moment when it all felt real, Crenshaw said.
“I remember texting my wife after I left my news director’s office, kind of making the decision official, because there was a date that he needed to know by,” he said. “And I walked out and I was like, man, none of my co-workers really knew yet. So I walked back to my desk and I was like, ‘Man, I’m really doing this — getting out of the industry.’ So yeah, it was weird. It’s still a little bittersweet.”
Of course, there is also the possibility of returning to a newsroom if the siren call becomes too strong. But that’s farther down the road, Crenshaw said.
“At the end of the day I feel at peace with the decision,” he said, “which, I think, is as good as what you can hope for.”