During my time with BUTV10, I….
was an anchor and Executive Producer for Inside Boston, BUTV’s newsmagazine. I was part of BUTV before Boston University allowed its students to have cable in its dorm rooms, so our reach was limited. In fact, we had to host watch parties in Warren Towers to even showcase our work! Nevertheless, I was involved in BUTV for all of my four years at BU, until I graduated in May 2002. I double-majored at BU, graduating with degrees in Broadcast Journalism and Political Science. BUTV was an invaluable experience for me, and gave me the confidence and skills I needed to enter the television industry upon graduation. It’s crucially important for students to know how to skillfully and quickly put together news stories in a compelling manner, and “Inside Boston” provides an outlet for students’ to hone those skills. Success in journalism and television production is often times more about training than studying, and that’s why BUTV is so crucial to the education of students at the College of Communication.
Since BUTV10, I’ve…
been fortunate enough to build an incredible career in the journalism field, and my journey has most recently helped me to land at CNN, a news organization I could’ve only dreamed of working at when I was a college student. But, it was a long road to get to this point, and it took a lot of hard work and perseverance on my part. I began my career at a local cable news start-up in Albany, New York called Capital News 9 (it’s now called Your News Now “YNN”). While there I performed virtually every function in the newsroom as a one-man band reporter. I then moved on to Hartford, Connecticut where I was a reporter and weekend anchor at the CBS affiliate WFSB-TV. Then, I decided to mix it up a little and enroll in law school at the University of Connecticut while working at WFSB. It was a challenging four years, but I’m so glad I made the commitment and eventually earned my law degree. I left the television business for 2 years while I worked as an attorney in New York City, but I eventually got back into television news since I discovered that was my one true passion. I worked for 4 ½ years at WCBS in New York City before getting hired at CNN in April 2016. I was originally a Correspondent in New York City, but was promoted to Justice Correspondent out of Washington, D.C. in June 2017. I believe that one of the best things I did in my career was to get a law degree and become somewhat specialized in a reporting field. My legal knowledge has been invaluable during my time at CNN, and I highly recommend to aspiring journalists that they know how to be a general assignment reporter, but also focus on a specialty that they can sell themselves to news organizations on. The news business is an increasingly competitive field, and any advantage you have will only help.
My advice to current BUTV10 students is….
To consider specializing in a field of journalism (see above), and also to do as much networking before graduation as possible. The news field, and any field really, is all about WHO you know. Take advantage of the fact that you’re a college student and people will want to chat with you about their own careers, and meet as many people as possible!
My number one lesson I’ve learned since joining the industry is….
You can never coast. The television field, and journalism in particular, is about being dogged in your pursuits and being extremely proactive. Someone will always be looking to scoop you or to steal that coveted job from you, so stay hungry and never stop working tirelessly to achieve the dreams you desire.
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