Nina Sossamon, Channel 4
“I’m part of the woodwork around here,” Nina Sossamon says. “I’m just expected when people turn on their TVs.”
This will likely be the last time you see Sossamon’s name in the anchor category. After 14 years on Charleston TV, including 12 as a news anchor, she signed off for the last time in January, hoping to make more time for family.
“Working ’til midnight and getting up early in the morning was taking its toll,” she says, noting she’s now happily “un-sleep-deprived.”
The most memorable moments for Sossamon were the dramatic events unfolding while she was sitting behind the desk, like hurricanes, when viewers need the local news the most.
“There’s no prompter, there is no anything,” she says. “You’re just talking.”
One live event still stands out: when the Los Angeles police chased O.J. Simpson down the freeway soon after his wife’s death. It was the first night that Sossamon was anchoring the news solo.
“They told me, ‘Just ad lib.'” she says.
As she was deciding to move away from the news business a few months ago, Sossamon knew she didn’t want to leave Charleston.
“This has become home,” she says.
After leaving Channel 4, Sossamon didn’t have to look far for work. Several companies made offers, but none provided the type of challenge she now has forming the media division at Benefitfocus, a technology firm that works with the insurance industry. The scope of what the division will do is still being ironed out, but Sossamon says that the objective will be to help explain health care benefits and programs, possibly through prepackaged news segments or website videos. Terms like “HMO” and “PPO” have become staples of the industry, but can still confuse the average client.
“Through this, I could be affecting millions of people,” Sossamon says. “That’s much bigger than what I can do in local news.”
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