The dress, the shoes, the hair – it’s all they think about for weeks leading up to the Golden Globes. And then, on awards night, it’s all Molly Palmer ’05 thinks about.
“I’m there to worry about what people are wearing, because that is what our story is about,” says the West Coast associate producer for The Today Show, who herself wears cushy flats and a comfortable pair of black pants on the red carpet. Her simple garb allows her to spend the weeks prior to the show on what she’s supposed to be doing: working.
“Leading up to the show,” Palmer explains, “I’m working on credentials [i.e., obtaining event access for various people] and logistics for the show – getting to know the credential people, going on walkthroughs, coordinating with our crews, worrying about frequencies, that kind of thing.”
As one of only eight people responsible for the West Coast’s contributions to The Today Show, Palmer doesn’t get to sleep very much after an awards show like the Golden Globes, but that’s not because she’s out partying. Instead, she’s back at the Burbank News Bureau until 2:00 a.m., compiling the best clips from the night. Still, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I feel so lucky to have my job and think it’s one of the coolest imaginable,” says Palmer. “It’s always challenging and is always changing. I never know if I’ll be working on a political story, a fire story or an entertainment piece. My job also allows me to meet all kinds of different people, go places I wouldn’t go otherwise and learn about new things constantly.”
From Brangelina one night to Mitt Romney the next, Palmer certainly meets all kinds – and she is grateful for every minute of it.
After all, if it weren’t for The Today Show, she says, “I would have never had the opportunity to joke around with former SNL star and comedian Finesse Mitchell in a coffee shop on a story about ‘what your coffee order says about you.’ I would never have wrangled six 1½-year-olds for a live update about the Masche sextuplets.”
And, it’s possible she would have never found what she’s really good at: something she jokingly calls “being nosy.” But you can tell from the crack in her voice as she talks about her involvement on a recent story – the murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu – that there’s much more to it than that.
It was up to Palmer – who spent a week holed up in the Microtel Inn in Tracy, Calif., located across the street from the mobile home park where Sandra lived and allegedly was killed – to book interviews with Sandra’s aunt and uncle. As is usually the case with delicate stories like this one, the key was “knowing when to back off,” Palmer says. “There is definitely a line, and you have to know where that line is.”
Palmer demonstrated her sensitivity when, only three days after Sandra’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase at the bottom of a collection pond, her mother, Maria, agreed to an interview, and – in order to accommodate the show’s East Coast airtime of 7:15 a.m. – Matt Lauer interviewed her and Sandra’s aunt live via satellite at 4:15 a.m.
The two women sat holding hands in folding chairs outside the hotel, the cold, still-dark night eerily appropriate. In the moments leading up to the interview, Palmer vigilantly turned the TV monitor away from the women as the grisly footage of the murder scene flashed across the screen. And, when she realized the family could still hear what was being said through their earpieces, she jumped to action, standing with her face next to the camera filming Maria and “just had her look at me and take deep breaths.”
After Sandra’s mother barely made it through the interview, Palmer walked her home, Maria braced on her arm for comfort. As she opened the door to the mobile home – because Maria was shaking too much to use her own key – Palmer felt the excruciating clash between the responsibility of work and the reality of life as she was forced to leave Maria at home and go back to join the crew: “In that moment, I was Molly Palmer, not Today Show producer. Maria’s pain was so raw. It was horrific.”
In a mixed-up Hollywood milieu in which identities are fluid, relationships are seldom long lasting and eccentricity is the norm, knowing who you are – and especially who you are not – is crucial. The pressure to compete with The Early Show and Good Morning America might tempt someone in Palmer’s position to compromise integrity for the sake of the story, but she maintains perspective by constantly reminding herself that she’s dealing with people – not “guests.” It helps to be able to call her father, longtime NBC news correspondent and anchor John Palmer, and her mother, journalist Nancy Doyle Palmer, for advice. As soon as she returned to her hotel room after the interview with Maria, Palmer was on the phone with her dad.
“I talk to my parents every day,” she says. “It’s nice that they understand what I’m dealing with.”
Palmer’s sister Carter also knows a bit about what Molly does; she works in the entertainment industry, and the two sisters live together in Los Angeles. There are, however, some vast differences between their jobs. “Our other sister Hope makes fun of me because Carter works in this chichi office and I work in a cubicle,” she says.
The nature of production requires expediency and open communication, so the cubicle set-up is a must. Fortunately for Palmer, she likes the people she works with.
“My co-workers are one of the reasons I love my job the most,” she says. “Because we often work such long and odd hours together and are put in all kinds of unusual situations with one another, we are especially close and they are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. We work together and are always helping each other.”
And it’s a good thing, too, because in Palmer’s line of work, there’s a lot to be done – quickly. From tracking down NBC archive footage, getting permissions and getting statements to booking guests for the show and coordinating crews, Palmer’s job – which she describes as a “scavenger hunt” – is all over the place. And, no, her humble cubicle may not be as exotic as her sister’s posh workspace, but the appeal of her job is not found in the office – it’s found on the front lines of the stories she covers.
From the apparent glitz of the Golden Globes to the disturbing tragedy in the small town of Tracy, Palmer’s job changes daily, humanity being the only constant. And whether the stories are tragic, exciting or uplifting, the people in front of the cameras are fortunate to have someone as grounded as Molly Palmer behind the scenes.
– Lindsey Jones ’05
Photography by Leslie McKellar
