It was clear something had finally changed when I turned on that shiny, dusty, 14-year-old television sitting helplessly in the family living room. From it's screen, there came a woman. A black woman. A couragious woman. Her name, was Oprah Winfrey. And for the first time, I actually sat down and watched "one of those stupid talk shows." And it changed the way I saw television for the rest of my life.

Oprah wasn't like one of the masses. She was too naive. She was too real. And people liked that. A change of pace that contributed not only to the money, or to the ratings, but to society. This woman actually seemed to care. Not just about entertaining her audiences, but involving them.

When example and illustration was worst for wear, she didn't mind at all, telling us about her troubled life, extinguishing the long lasting propaganda that all television stars have the perfect, white picket fence, nuclear family.

It was that enthusiaium for her audience; it was that dream, and that trust, that made her influencial. It was someone "out there", reaching in, and letting us all into our strange little worlds, and yet still, have something in common. It wasn't long before no one had to ask, "Oprah who?"