"NBC s Golden Girl" is what Newsweek

glowingly dubbed Jessiea Savitch after her

brilliant performance as anchor for the 1980

presidential conventions.

When America s foremost network an-

chorwoman joined the network in 1977 as a

Senate correspondent and weekend anchor,

she was capping a meteoric rise to stardom

in a time when the television industry was

undergoing phenomenal changes both in

structure and attitude. Using her personal

experiences to illuminate that major period

of transition, she lends a vivid perspective

to the emergence of women in the formerly

male-only, old-boy bastion of newscasting.

As frank and forthright about her life as

she is about her work, Ms. Savitch provides

a colorful, moving account of growing up

in rural Pennsylvania and New Jersey with

a widowed mother and two sisters; of work-

ing weekends as a disc jockey on a teenage