“I want a story to move me or provide me with what it means to me or to my world,” said Rebecca Zepick. “As a viewer of TV, if I don’t feel something or feel wiser afterward, then I feel it’s a waste of my time.”

One might never guess Rebecca Zepick got her start in communication through opera while watching her on Studio B or listening to her passion for political journalism. But following her graduation from Wichita Collegiate High School, she studied music performance in New York, a choice she says taught her how to be a communicator. 

“In opera, I had to figure out how I was going to make a two-hour boring thing interesting while communicating through foreign language, music, acting and dance,” said Zepick. 

Though she soon realized opera wasn’t the career path she wanted to pursue, she credits the skills she learned in opera—knowing lines, performing and making something interesting for the audience—with preparing her for the world of broadcast journalism. 

However, when she realized she didn’t want to make a living through opera, Zepick pursued another interest—politics—and enrolled in law school with the assumption she would one day work in politics. Though she worked with the campaigns for Carla Stovall, Ken Glasscock and Sam Brownback, she was practicing law when her big break came in October 2007. 

John McCain’s campaign contacted Zepick with an offer to be the communication director in Iowa. Zepick agreed to take a leave of absence from her law firm and volunteer through the Iowa caucus. For six weeks she booked spokespeople—called surrogates—for the McCain campaign in media outlets around the state.

“No one in Iowa thought McCain was still in the race but that changed in a few weeks,” said Zepick. “All of a sudden people began showing up from both major and cable networks.”

With the surge in momentum, Zepick traveled to Arlington, Va., to book surrogates for print, radio and TV in every major media market in primary states, a task she did through the primaries before returning to her law firm. 

But she was not done with the McCain campaign. They called again to ask her to come on staff as the national veterans communication director, a position that would have her creating messages and drafting talking points on the military aspect of the campaign for the surrogates she booked.

Zepick was responsible for booking appearances and creating media tours for people in intelligence, marines, the 9-11 commissioners, the director of the CIA, astronauts, even the guys who pulled Saddam Hussein out of the spider hole. 

“You basically create news stories for the nightly news and give radio drive time stories,” said Zepick. “I had no idea that’s how it worked. There are people who make their living doing that. 

“I got along well with media outlets when I got to see them as a client instead of being scared of them.” 

When the election was over, Zepick’s law firm wasn’t in a position to have her back, but she received an offer to host a bipartisan, political show in Arizona. The offer led her to WSU and Studio B.

While Zepick had been involved with placing people in the media, she had never been on the other side of the camera reporting and anchoring, both of which she would need to be able to do. She was put in touch with Elliott School faculty member Kevin Hager who suggested she take Studio B.

“I love it,” said Zepick of Studio B. “I love that he (Hager) turns us loose with a camera and TV show once a week.”

Zepick has made the most of her time in Studio B and with her internship at KAKE TV, including flying to New York during spring break to interview Elliott school graduates Jeremy Hubbard and Taunia Hottman. 

Zepick will be well equipped to shoot and edit video, as well as report and host the show that will cover state-wide political issues, when she gets to Arizona.

“If I had gone out to Arizona before doing this, we would have produced a far lower quality product,” said Zepick. “And I wouldn’t have understood how to be competitive in the industry. I now know how to make a story more visually interesting and emotionally compelling, and I understand how the rest of the industry works.”