North Jersey Media
Brenda Blackmon arrived in Secaucus two decades ago, fresh from television stints in Nashville and, before that, her hometown, Columbus, Ga. And so, when she first came to WWOR-TV, the station hired a voice coach to help hide her roots.
“I’d [originally] had a Southern drawl, but when I left Tennessee, I left with a little of a twang,” says Blackmon, the Emmy-winning co-anchor of My9 WWOR-TV’s 11 p.m. newscast. “And then when I came here, the voice coach told me, ‘It’s just that you talk flat. Take your tongue out and put it between your teeth.’… It made all the difference in the world.”
Nonetheless, she adds with a chuckle, “When I’m very tired, the Southern accent comes back.”
Though Blackmon is now happily rooted in New Jersey, there’s clearly no completely taking the South out of this newswoman. More…