Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Spring 2013 | Page 42

alumni news

profile

Universal, the History Channel, Investigation
Discovery, and A&E.
She earned the industry’s highest accolades
for her work as co-executive producer of NBC’s
Starting Over. Premiering in 2003-04, Starting
Over was the first reality TV show ever nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award. It won three
and was nominated for six. The show followed
the life challenges of six women living together
in a single home. Life coaches and psychologists counseled the women, an effort Linda
believes genuinely helped the participants.

Telling It Real
Emmy award-winning
writer and producer Linda
Midgett ’92 believes
listening is an important
obligation for Christians.
by Dawn Kotapish ’92
“Empowering

individuals

to tell their stories gives them dignity,” says
Linda Midgett ’92, who believes it’s particularly
important to listen to the more marginalized
members of society who have little or no platform for telling these stories.

Photo: Ashley sellner

In her most recent film, The Line, Linda tackles
the hot-button issue of poverty in America by
giving voice to four diverse stories of Americans
living at or below the poverty line. Sponsored by
organizations including Sojourners, Oxfam, and
the MacArthur Foundation, the documentary
(available on YouTube) premiered in Washington, D.C., in October 2012 to an enthusiastic
reception.
The film debunks the myth that poverty is primarily an urban problem. On the contrary, it
is growing at a faster rate in the suburbs than
in the cities. This fact was eye-opening for
Linda. “There are people living at the poverty
line who don’t look like they are,” she says. “If
you were to drive by their suburban house, you
wouldn’t think there was such a struggle going
on inside.”
In the early and mid-1990s, Linda got started
as a writer and producer working for PBS
affiliates and CNN International. Since then,
she has supervised more than 600 hours of
programming for networks including NBC-

42     S P R I N G   2 0 1 3

Unlike many reality television shows, Starting
Over was entirely unscripted, representing
the more organic approach to storytelling that
Linda prefers. “I’m too much of a documentarian at heart to be interested in the more scripted
approach of a lot of reality TV,” she says. “Real
stories are more interesting. Like Mark Twain
said, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction.’”
As executive producer for the History Channel’s groundbreaking series Gangland, Linda
struggled with the value of producing such violent content. Ultimately, she decided that Gangland’s portrayal of a disturbing, yet very real,
side of urban America could play an important
role in raising the consciousness of communities, especially communities of faith.
Linda entered Wheaton as a piano performance major but soon followed her first love—
writing—into a literature degree. She is particularly grateful for the mentorship of Arthur
F. Holmes Professor of Faith and Learning
Dr. Roger Lundin ’71, who was adviser to the
Record when Linda served as editor-in-chief
during her senior year. “Roger Lundin was my
first ‘boss’ and a real source of encouragement. He was able to see my potential at a time
when I couldn’t fully appreciate what I had to
offer,” she recalls.

Linda currently lives in Charlotte, North
Carolina, with her husband, John
Otzenberger, a clinical psychologist, and
their two young children.