Lipscomb Department of Communication students welcomed award-winning television host Ashley Eicher for the final Media Masters event of the semester.
Eicher now hosts The Ram Report on the Rolling Stone Country website, but said she weathered many ups and downs before she began her career.
“I had to chase the dream that I felt like I was supposed to be doing,” Eicher told the audience. “From my perspective and my faith I just had to trust God and say, ‘OK, you’ve got this.’”
She went through a 10-month unemployment period early in her career that changed her perspective on her vocation and taught her to lean on God.
“I kept praying like, ‘Why am I a nanny right now,’ or, ‘When is this going to end,’ but I really needed that entire 10 months to change my attitude,” she said. “It knocked down my pride and gave me a reality check.”
Junior Josie Burlison said Eicher’s message encouraged her as she pursues a career outside the journalism and media realm.
“Going into something like interior design, you have to build up the clientele and there’s not always that steady income,” she said. “So I liked how she talked to us about that period of unemployment.”
Eventually, in 2006 Eicher started her on-camera career as the host of ABC and the CMA’s first web series on the CMAs and CMA Music Festival. Since then, she has hosted with well-known personalities such as Luke Bryan, Jake Owen and Chuck Wicks.
Eicher told the students that good television hosting comes from developing good conversational skills, being themselves and having more fun.
“It bodes well to talk to everyone and be able to sit in a room with anyone,” she said. “Connecting with other people was what drew me to journalism.
“Also the best journalists in town know their stuff. The artists—or whoever—should feel like they’re just talking to a friend.”
Beyond improving communication skills, Eicher emphasized the importance of taking internships and network-building opportunities seriously.
“It is so much a relational business,” she said. “Every job that I’ve had has been because someone has vouched for me and gotten me into that next position.”
Most poignantly, Eicher repeated to students that success in the TV industry is “all about the hustle.”
“I would come up with every idea in my head to push the network content. And ask myself questions like, ‘How bad do you want it or how hard do you want to work?’”
Junior Shelby Ann-Marie Miller said that as an aspiring artist, she related with Eicher’s message about “the hustle.”
“I think [it’s] something everyone can relate to, no matter what industry you’re going into or what career choice,” she said. “Hearing all the work she put in makes me want to work all that much harder to get where I want to be.”