On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with Fred Blankenship, morning anchor of Channel 2 Action News This Morning on WSB-TV, the voice waking up Atlanta since 2007. Fred takes us from a 12-year-old kid in Harbor City, California who wanted to be the guy inside the TV, to the biggest decision of his career: when New York’s number one market offered him the job but told him to change his name, he said no and kept Blankenship.

Brandon and Fred get into building a personal brand inside a legacy institution, why authenticity became the whole strategy, using energy and 90s hip hop to connect with a city at 4:30 in the morning, protecting your peace in a heavy business, and how Atlanta made him who he is.