Roberta D. Batts

I attribute my success to my grandmother and my parents. My mother was a registered nurse and was supervisor of nurses at Long Island Jewish in 1963, and if you haven't noticed, I'm Black, so I was very proud of her for that. She was the one who used to go to the school and give vaccines. My mother always pushed education, and my grandmother always pushed education. My grandmother loved school but had to drop out in her day to help her mother take care of her family, so she never got a chance to finish high school. When I finished high school, I felt like I did that for my grandmother. When I finished college, I felt like I did that for my mother, because I remember telling my mother when I graduate from high school, I'm never going back to school. She was like, yes you are. So I felt like college and my bachelor's degree was for my mother. When I decided to get the master's, that one was for me. My grandmother used to have this saying about having intestinal fortitude, and I attribute to her for making me aware that I even had a fortitude that was intestinal.

The best career advice I ever received came from my grandmother, and it was: Stick with it. You have to stick with it. Whatever it is, stick with it. Take the lumps and just keep going. I've told my daughter in life, life can give you a sucker punch to the gut and leave you a quivering mass of wet flesh on the floor. Okay, now get up. Whatever you're figuring you want to do, then do it, stick with it.

If I had the power to command a group of young women, I would talk to them about not getting pregnant when you first fall in love, when you're young, because what you want at one age is not what you want at another age. When you're older, you're going to look back and wonder what in the world you were doing with that person in the first place. I would like to be able to talk to young women and help keep them on a path, whether they go to college or whether they go to trade school. Whatever makes you happy, just do it, stick with it. Understand that while babies are beautiful and we all love the baby, they're expensive. When you're young and you get pregnant young, you are putting yourself on a road to a certain amount of poverty unless you stick with something. I've known some women who said I'm pregnant, I'm going to finish school, I'm going to go to college, but they were not the majority of the women. The majority of the women did not fare well, and they didn't wind up with that one that they thought they were so in love with.

I think AI can be in the wrong place. A lot of companies may figure they'll save some money by using AI versus people. I think that's a challenge, because the media industry is such an incestuous little industry. I don't know how the young people get in. AI is one of those things that I'm scared to death of, and at the same time I'm fascinated by it, because of the good it could do, but I'm just worried about the state of mind of people who will use it. I remember Chuck Todd doing Meet the Press years ago, and he talked about how they could take a video and make it look like you said something you did not say, and in your voice. As soon as I heard that, I freaked out. I thought this is terrible, because I'm thinking, oh my god, can you imagine the lives this could ruin? It's very scary, especially with a political mind.

In my personal life, if I had the power to command a group of young women, I would talk to them about making smart choices about their futures. I would help keep them on a path, whether they go to college or trade school. Whatever makes you happy, just do it and stick with it. I want young women to understand that while babies are beautiful and we all love babies, they're expensive, and getting pregnant young puts you on a road to a certain amount of poverty unless you stick with something like finishing school or going to college. I've known some women who did that, but they were not the majority. The majority of women did not fare well and didn't wind up with the person they thought they were so in love with. I would like to be able to speak to groups of young women about these important life decisions.