A California TV reporter said she was strongly encouraged to change her voice to advance her broadcast career — now she’s using her voice to share her vocal surgery journey.
“I hope my experience can help others who are facing similar judgment and shame to understand that they shouldn’t give up on themselves and their dreams,” Emma Goss, 30, told The Post Tuesday. “Surgery was the path I chose for myself, it doesn’t mean it’s right for others.”
Goss — a freelance reporter in the San Francisco Bay area and staff writer for J. The Jewish News of Northern California — wrote about her life-changing decision in an essay for TODAY.com, claiming people have long made fun of her “shockingly nasally” voice that has drawn comparisons to Fran Drescher on “The Nanny.”
“I call my signature sound my ‘cilantro voice’ because for some people, it seems to incite strong, divisive reactions — like the flavor of cilantro does,” Goss wrote.
“When I open my mouth to speak, I never know if the person I’m speaking to will be one of those people who wants to spit it out immediately, or if they’ll have no aversion.”
The young professional described a time in her career when she was filling a vacancy for several months and waiting for management to decide if she would be hired to fill the role permanently.
“But when the day came, upper management told me that despite my excellent reporting and unique investigative talents, my voice was a problem, matter-of-factly saying it was just too nasally for ‘this size market,’ and seeming to suggest that I was in over my head if I thought I could land a full-time job in a top 10 market with a cilantro voice,” she wrote.
“They added that the station hoped I’d stay on as a freelancer, and offered to pay for a voice coach to work with me.”
She recalled: “The rejection stung, and the offer to pay for a coach didn’t strike me as supportive, but more of an ultimatum: Change your voice, or get out.”
Goss said she enrolled in online vocal training courses and would “complete the exercises until I was out of breath and my tongue was sore.”
Not wanting to give up on TV reporting, Goss said she knew she had to leave her freelance job at the unidentified news station — and look into permanently changing her voice.
In November, a laryngologist diagnosed Goss with velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI), which the Cleveland Clinic says occurs when the seal between the oral and nasal cavities doesn’t close completely, causing a nasal sound and other speech issues.
Her doctor recommended injecting “filler material into the wall of my larynx, enough to inflate part of it and cause it to fully shut” before discussing surgical options.
Goss admitted that she was scared this could mean “sacrificing a part of my identity,” but also wanted to advance her career, so she decided to get the injection.
She said she underwent the procedure in January at her own expense.
“The outcome of the surgery was subtle, but sounded to me as if I’d finally gotten over a 30-year cold. The change was barely noticeable to the people who care about me, who didn’t think my voice needed changing at all,” Goss wrote.
“I went ahead with a second surgery in May, which entailed stitching a synthetic ‘flap’ to my larynx to permanently shut the air gap. This time, recovery will take several months, and during this time, my voice sounds more nasally than it ever has before — the exact opposite of what I was trying to achieve.”
Goss declined to comment when asked by The Post if she’s heard from her former employer since she got the procedures or after her essay published Tuesday.
She said she is happily working at a different news station in the Bay Area, and her voice “has never been a topic of discussion between my colleagues and me.”
She added: “It’s meaningful to read the messages of encouragement and empathy that people have shared with me, and to know my story resonates with so many people.”
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