PAULA SLIER
meet paula
The People Who Believed in Me
The biggest turning points in our lives are often not the places we go, but the people who see something in us before we see it ourselves
"This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it's nothing but wires and lights in a box.”
- American broadcast journalist,
Edward Murrow
I was a shy university student with big dreams and very little confidence.
I knew no-one in television. Everyone told me it was an industry where you had to know someone to get anywhere.
I first met Helen Heldenmuth after reading in the evening newspaper about a Jewish television programme she was launching. I picked up the phone, introduced myself, and asked if I could come and see her. She said yes. That one word opened a door that changed my life. I couldn’t drive home fast
enough. I banged on the front door until my mother came running, convinced something terrible had happened. “I’m going to be on television!” I shouted.
Helen became far more than my first boss. She became my mentor, my teacher and, over time, one of the most important people in my life. She believed in giving people opportunities, and she had an extraordinary ability to see potential in everyone, long before they themselves did. She believed journalism should be serious, but journalists didn’t always have to be. If we weren’t enjoying what we did, she’d ask, “What’s the point?” Whenever an aspiring journalist reaches out to me for advice, I always make time. It’s the best way I know to thank Helen for
everything she did for me.
Every opportunity that followed can be traced back to the day one remarkable woman said yes to a nervous university student.
