Reporter who left WSAV is back on TV. Here’s where she’s telling Lowcountry stories

For television reporter Holly Bounds-Jackson, Hurricane Matthew was a career turning point.

She was separated from her infant daughter for 10 days while covering the storm that ravaged the Lowcountry for WSAV-TV.

“I hated knowing that I was so far from my children,” she said. “... TV is what I love, but the local news demands don’t fit family life.”

The mom of three daughters — her youngest is only a month old — left WSAV in December and has accepted a position as director of content and operations for ETV Lowcountry, which has offices on the campus of Technical College of the Lowcountry on Ribaut Road in Beaufort.

In some ways, the move is a bit of a homecoming for Bounds-Jackson, 34.

A reporting job at the station — which was then known as WJWJ-TV and had a nightly newscast — was her first job out of college.

Bounds-Jackson graduated from University of South Carolina in Columbia in 2005.

“I came in right out of college not really having a clue, to be honest, and now I’m managing the place. It’s kind of funny,” she said with a laugh.

In the intervening years, budget cuts limited the work done from the Lowcountry station, but Bounds-Jackson’s aim is to turn the tide and once again give ETV viewers and those visiting scetv.org a glimpse into Lowcountry life.

“There’s something special about South Carolina stories and the people here, and these are the stories I always want to tell,” she said.

Part of her new job will be working with broadcasting students from USC Beaufort and also making sure the television studio space is used for the benefit of the community, such as for meetings or screenings, she said.

Said Bounds-Jackson, whose family recently moved from Hilton Head Island to Bluffton: The new job is the “perfect balance of getting to do TV but at a more normal schedule. ... It’s the best of both worlds.”

This story was originally published January 9, 2018 at 2:33 PM with the headline "Reporter who left WSAV is back on TV. Here’s where she’s telling Lowcountry stories."