Deborah Weiner, ‘You Really Have To Be Empathetic’

September 29, 2017 Elizabeth Heubeck

Deborah Weiner, Channel 11 anchor (Photo by Evan Cohen)

On television, Deborah Weiner warms viewers with her larger-than-life smile and compassionate demeanor that turns serious whenever the subject matter does.

Off-camera, her smile remains wide and genuine, and she can easily strike a compassionate tone. But there’s more to Weiner that might surprise her longtime viewers.

“I am funny,” she says. And it’s true. Growing up, Weiner wanted to be a comedian. “I was obsessed with Carol Burnett,” she says.

Perhaps the closest the 53-year-old Homeland resident came to following that dream was playing the comic role of Ruth, a maid or as Weiner puts it, “an old hag,” in the Park School production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance.”

After studying journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and earning a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism, Weiner landed her first television job at WYFF-TV, in Greenville, S.C. Asked if it was a shock for a Jewish girl from Baltimore to start her career working in the heart of the south, Weiner deadpans, “For them, terribly. For me, it was a switch.”

Elaborating, Weiner says, “I loved it. It turned my world upside down. Everything I knew, either from Baltimore or Chicago, did not exist in Greenville.” But she says she learned a lot, especially from a “Lou Grant-type boss,” after a few years before returning to her hometown, where she worked as a reporter at local TV station WBFF-TV. Then, it was off to the big time.

In 1994, Weiner took a job as a correspondent for ABC News, which she calls “the biggest leap in my entire life.” She describes the experience as akin to a fellowship, in which she worked with the best and brightest in the broadcasting industry.

“You learn to think pretty quickly,” she says of the opportunity. But again, she was pulled back to Charm City, this time as WBFF’s main anchor. After taking a brief hiatus when her second child was born, Weiner returned to television, this time for WBAL-TV 11’s special projects unit and investigative news team. She’s been there ever since.

“I worked part-time for 13 years here,” Weiner says, noting it was quite uncommon in television at the time.

Now, she’s full-time at WBAL, working a late shift that runs until 11:30 p.m. and has turned her from a morning person into a night owl. She notes that the schedule works for her family now that her two children, ages 16 and 19, are older.

While it’s clear that Weiner makes her family a priority — she’ll sometimes even dash home to have dinner with her teenage son before appearing on the evening news — she also shows a deep respect for families in Baltimore on whom she reports.

A prime example is the documentary she and her colleagues produced in 2012. “Rebounding from Loss” followed a local high school basketball team after one of its team members was fatally shot. Weiner opens the documentary by describing the late Marcus Harvell as a player “who could block every shot, except the one that took his life.”

While making the documentary, Weiner, who admits she’s not a sports fan, says she watched more basketball than she ever had in her life. She also cemented her perspective as a journalist working in Baltimore City.

“We have to remember the humanity behind the violence in the city,” Weiner says, her mile-wide smile fading as her eyes widened. “You really have to be empathetic to be in this business to make a difference. You have to care about the news.”

Top photo: Deborah Weiner, Channel 11 anchor (Photo by Evan Cohen)