Millburn-Short Hills Magazine Spring 2020 | Page 22

media
A Broadcast Career
Born at WSOU
Traffic reporter Kelly Dillon credits Seton Hall station with opening doors
WRITTEN BY JULIA MARTIN
K
20
SPRING 2020 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE
GETTING THE
WORD OUT
Verona resident
Kelly Dillon
reports on traffic,
celebrities and
fashion and life-
style trends.
10 years ago, Dillon can hardly
believe her luck.
“We have these amazing relation-
ships, it kind of blows my mind
sometimes,” she says. “Who would
have thought 10 years ago I would be
on a first name basis with all these
housewives and have them in my
phone?”
Dillon got her “housewife” connec-
tions as a senior reporter and fashion
editor for NJ Advance Media’s now-
defunct social and style website,
OMJ.com, where she hosted and
produced online videos ranging
from hair and beauty tutorials to
celebrity interviews.
After graduating from Verona
eeping up with Kelly
Dillon is not easy.
Besides her day
job as afternoon
on-air traffic report-
er for WCBS 880
AM, the 35-year-old Essex County
resident hosts a podcast for the
station called “Kicking Back With
Kelly,” works as a voice-over art-
ist and promotes favorite brands on
social media as a fashion and beauty
influencer.
“I am working pretty much all the
time,” Dillon says with a laugh. Her
traffic reporting starts at 4 p.m. and
runs to about 10:30; on podcast days,
she commutes in earlier to WCBS’
offices in Manhattan's Hudson
Square neighborhood near the
Holland Tunnel. Weekends are
reserved for voice-over and
influencer work.
She is hardly complaining.
“I love what I do, so it doesn’t
seem like work,” she says.
Her podcast, which features “fun
girl chat” with celebrities and CEOs
in fashion and beauty, is an especially
dreamy gig for Dillon. The idea for
the show came while talking with
a friend in the station's podcast
division who said they were looking
for female talent. In addition to
interviews with “Boss Babes” such
as Tanya Zuckerbrot, the founder of
F-Factor, a lifestyle and diet empire,
Dillon dishes with celebs such as the
Real Housewives of Bravo TV. A self-
professed “Bravoholic” who has been
a fan of the franchise since it began
in Ocean County, California almost