By Dylan Van Sickle

 It’s not uncommon for the grandeur of a childhood dream to fade. Some grow up wanting to be doctors or actors or even the President of the United States, but the passage of time is a powerful drug, and just enough of it can catapult you through life with your dreams in the rear-view mirror.

 Emmy Award-winning journalist Peter Alexander didn’t really have a dream — he had a passion, and that passion was derived from the news.

 “The intersection of news information and television was intoxicating to me,” Alexander said.

 Alexander’s path began to take shape during his freshman year of high school, when his parents started dropping him off at the local Fox affiliate in Oakland, CA every Wednesday night. It didn’t matter so much to Alexander that the scripts he wrote there would likely never air. From that point on, he knew what he wanted to do — and let his gut determine the rest.

 But that was when he first started out. Alexander has long since eclipsed his initial goal to “get to a place in his career where his parents could see him in the Bay area,” to become a White House correspondent for NBC and anchor on Weekend Today.

It’s a tall order for anyone to take on, especially for someone with two daughters and a wife in Alison Starling, fellow Emmy Award winner and anchor for WJLA in Washington D.C. However, Alexander knows what it takes to make it work.

 “It isn’t a job or career. To be a journalist you have to be passionate and curious,” Alexander said. “And devour the information in front of you.”

 When Alexander was named White House correspondent for NBC in 2012, curious was exactly what he needed to be. At that point in his career, he had already interviewed high-profile leaders like Fidel Castro during Hurricane Ivan, and reported from places like Gaza, Afghanistan and the Galapagos Islands. But the day Alexander’s name was called for the correspondent’s job was only the second time he had ever even been to the White House.

 Seven years, two presidents and many more White House visits later, Alexander remains well-aware of what his position demands.

 “The White House is probably the most challenging beat on the planet. The same people you rely on are the are the same people you have to fact check in real time,” Alexander said.

 That trade off, Alexander explains, gives him a front-row seat to history. However, he never lets the weightiness of the White House detract from his role as a reporter.

 “I am hyper-aware of the higher responsibility to address issues that matter,” Alexander said.

 In October of last year, it was announced that Alexander, in addition to being a White House correspondent, would replace fellow NBC anchor Craig Melvin on Weekend Today.

 You don’t get to where Alexander is by conforming to traditional journalism ethics and responsibility alone. He says you have to be driven, and “you’ve got to know 10 times more than what you say on television.”

 “You can’t just do this if you’re myopic,” Alexander said. “You can’t fake it because that wears off.”

 Instead, Alexander believes emerging reporters should find and thank good mentors, work harder than the next person and understand that the worst anyone can say is no. 

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 By Ashley Collins

     On Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 2:55 p.m., I sent an email to Heidi Wigdahl, multimedia journalist and DePaul alum asking to set up an interview.  I sat in my bed anticipating that it would be a couple of days before she responded. I was in the process of editing my resume, when I finally decided to refresh my page and there it was. I couldn’t believe she had responded so quickly, I took a double look at the time the response was sent and it read 2:58 p.m.

      “Absolutely. I would be free Tuesday after 7 p.m. Otherwise, possibly Monday night after 7 but Tuesday would probably be better,” she wrote.

      Wigdahl, who has been a multimedia journalist for eight years started her career at KTTC in Rochester, Minn. which at the time was ranked 153 in television market size. Wigdahl believed that starting her career in a smaller town allowed her to grow and prepare for the next opportunity.

      “I produced. I anchored. I was a reporter. I was a videographer. I was an editor. I did it all,” she said. “I also had a boss that was very hands-on and he would go through live shots with you and critique you on what you did.”

     Wigdahl said she began to look at television stations between 100-200 as she applied to positions not only in broadcasting but in print as well. With no specific strategy, Wigdahl remained open and receptive in the beginning of her career which led her to her next opportunity in Knoxville, Tennessee at WBIR-TV.

      “Straight out of college, I very much went in with an open mind to take whatever I could get,” she said. “Go where you can do what you want to do, you’re going to be doing everything anyway.”

      Wigdahl used best practices when starting a new position such as reading the station’s content online and watching full newscasts which allowed her to get a “feel” for the type of station she was going to work for. Whether they focused heavily on lifestyle stories or investigative stories was important for her to know beforehand.

      Over the last eight years, Wigdahl has received several awards including two Regional Edward R. Murrow awards for Writing and Hard News. In 2015, Wigdahl was named “Best TV Reporter” by the Tennessee Associated Press and she also received a regional Emmy for video journalism. She has been recognized by the National Press Photographers Association, Midwest Broadcast Journalists and more including at the College of Communication at DePaul University where she was named “Journalism Student of the Year.”

      Heidi’s persistent patience, passion and skills has led her through her successes in journalism including her time at DePaul University.  Included in her time at DePaul was an internship with Carol Marin and Don Moseley.

      “The most valuable experience for me were things as simple as watching Don and Carol’s old work. I remember Don showed me this clip of Carol during 9/11 and she’s covered in ash in her blazer, those are the things that stick out to me hearing from people who’ve actually done it,” she said. 

      Wigdahl’s time at DePaul University not only opened doors for her but in the process, she said that her biggest takeaway was, “You have to be a human first and then a journalist, I love journalism because I love telling people’s stories and shedding light on different people and communities.”

A reporter’s relationship with a president who hates him

By Megan Stringer

“It’s a badge of merit,” said Sam Donaldson of the White House correspondent position on CNN this week. But now one correspondent’s press pass has been revoked and some are wondering what makes a White House press correspondent respectable after all?

Donaldson spoke out in support of CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, who this week had his White House press pass suspended by President Donald Trump’s administration. CNN and Acosta are now planning to sue the White House for the suspension.

“If he (the president) can select the reporter, then what is freedom of the press?” Donaldson asked.

It’s a question many are now asking after Acosta was publicly berated by the president at a news conference after the midterm elections. Acosta asked a question about the president’s characterization of a caravan of migrants making their way to the United States, seeking asylum.

In response, President Trump insulted Acosta’s personal moral character, saying he is a “rude, terrible person.” He refused to take a second question from Acosta.

Acosta’s press credentials were suspended by the White House later that evening, along with the explanation that Acosta showed “inappropriate behavior” when a White House aide touched his arm as she tried to take away the microphone from Acosta. (The video shared by the White House has been altered to make Acosta look worse, and in a statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Acosta had placed “his hands on a young woman.”)

However, Acosta’s method of questioning has come under scrutiny as well.

“CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” President Trump told Acosta live on air. There are many reasons the president might think this. Sure, it might be because he doesn’t like fielding tough questions about his rhetoric and decisions. But the president’s supporters might be wondering if Acosta’s attitude has something to do with it.

It’s Acosta’s rough questioning style that made him a household name, according to The Washington Post. But ABC’s Sam Donaldson was arguably one of the first White House correspondents to tackle that style of question-asking, under a Ronald Reagan Administration. If the president went too long in between press conferences, Donaldson would simply find ways to throw him questions during any public appearance. Now, Donaldson is telling Acosta to “keep it up.”

Acosta has done much the same, but in the face of a different presidency. President Trump does not dodge in silence the way Reagan did, but instead, might come back with a quip attack on the media or a factually incorrect statement. As seen in past encounters, President Trump’s routine response to Acosta’s questions is to simply insult CNN as the “enemy of the people,” rather than provide any sort of answer.

“I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news,” President Trump once said to Acosta during a news conference about the allegations contained in the Steele dossier, or the private report that alleges connections between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials.

And indeed, with a president who won’t answer questions even during the prescribed press conference time, it might be time to just shout those questions into the void of the White House, looking for answers anywhere you can get them.

That’s what Donaldson would do.

“The reason we yell at Reagan in the Rose Garden is that’s the only place we see him,” Donaldson told the New York Times in October 1987.

But President Trump isn’t necessarily hiding from the public in the same way Reagan was. The current president is accessible for questions, just not for answers.

So then, what does that badge of honor look like for a White House press correspondent? Acosta has said that comparisons drawn between Donaldson and him gives him the badge of honor that Donaldson had.

But at the end of the day, you can’t just have tough questions to wear a White House press badge of honor. Donaldson found out the way that worked best to get Reagan to answer questions. That’s what reporters do this job for –– get answers, so that people can have them. But if Acosta’s method isn’t delivering answers the same way Donaldson’s did, then maybe it’s time to rethink that method.

Shouting questions into the void might have worked before, but what worked in the past doesn’t always work in the future. As reporters face an increasingly unfriendly White House –– that takes steps to remove press credentials for reporters it doesn’t like –– there’s got to be a new way to ask tough questions. And, most importantly, to get answers.

MSNBC’S Kat McCullough Braun

By: Nes Charif

Doing what you love for a living sounds like the perfect story, especially when it’s centered around producing stories. They say every ‘good’ story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you couldn’t already tell this blog is coming to you straight from a student journalist. This is my perspective before I hit the field of journalism but what better way to prepare myself than to get some advice directly from one who’s been here first, Kat McCullough Braun.

Braun is a fellow Blue Demon and protege of my current mentors Carol Marin and Don Moseley. Once Upon a Time, she was in my shoes as I hope to one day be in hers. Earning her MBA at Northwestern University, Braun continues her work now as an investigative producer for MSNBC in New York City.  She gave me a little insight about what to expect, how to react, and to keep moving forward.

One thing is for sure, being in the journalism industry will always keep you on your toes. I could tell you that just trying to keep up as a student reporter. It’s hard to get bored. Whether it be out there reporting or behind the scenes as a field producer there are always opportunities to grow and change. When asked about how she decided on being a producer versus an on-air reporter Braun said, “Well the short answer is I haven’t made that decision yet. It always changes, there are always things — opportunities that come up or different types of shows that are starting. There’s always things changing and when we were in school we all had to do all of it. You had to be on camera, had to be in front of the tele-prompter, you had to do the behind the scenes one-man band stuff.”

The beauty of it is that it is always changing, and you don’t have to make one decision and it’s true—they do train us for it all. I can tell you that firsthand. It’s always rewarding knowing you’re doing important work that can really impact change to society. But as we all have learned, that reward comes with a price. As much as it’s a privilege to be able to ask questions and challenge those in power, times prove it’s also a risk.

Just last week Kat McCullough Braun was in the subway just under CNN’s New York headquarters as the cable network received pipe bomb packages in the mail and the emergency sirens went off. Braun said, “I think the biggest challenge right now is how polarized everybody is, and how nasty people can be towards each other and having to endure nasty tweets, comments–when reporters are getting mailed bombs, that’s a scary time. “

That incident hit home to everyone in the industry: to be deliberately attacked because you are doing your job diligently yet being hated to the point of violence because of negative rhetoric by a powerful figure and to realize that journalists upset powerful people and may become targets and that is the biggest downside.

Kat sometimes avoids telling people what she does for a living because it might spark a conversation she just does not want to have, so instead she tells people she’s an “assistant.”

These attacks only motivate Braun and other journalists more. We know we are poking at something important and that why the hate is so strong, something we are doing is right. Braun said,“It’s needed more right now than ever in my life time. To be a real journalist- not somebody who’s typing whatever crazy thing comes to their head on a blog or saying whatever untrue thing they want to say on television, you know, to actually have standards and integrity is really important right now.”

Now I ask myself does loving your job really mean loving it? Just to break it down–Is reporting on sad stories, shootings, corruption and, let’s be real, a lot of negative things lovable? I mean, as a reporter you must take all of it in, research and deliver the news all while keeping your composure and showing no sign of how you’re really feeling inside. In case some people forgot—yes, reporters are human beings –we do cry too.  Not to mention having your credibility attacked by the most powerful leader in the nation and attempts to blow up your work place and everyone in it. So, why do we do it?

You might not get it now, but it’s damn important. Someone needs to tell the world what’s really happening and it’s a hell of a job that’s a Hell worth keeping. I love the importance of it.

I asked Braun if she loved her job after being in the business for 10-plus years. She said,“Yeah… you know not every day is you know sunshine and rainbows and it’s hard, I mean last week was hard. But I think it’s important. And I believe in the working condition at work and people you work with. I’m glad to have had the opportunities that I’ve had.”

There is good is journalism and there is bad journalism and most certainly there are risks. Knowing all these truths will not end my journey before it begins. It only makes me want to go out and tackle the world even more.

by Madison Gardner

When I was told that I would be interviewing a DePaul alum that works in Buffalo, New York I went straight to Twitter – the stomping ground of journalists across the country and the world. When I got to Jenn Schanz’s page I saw a tweet pinned at the top that read, “It’s not a reporter’s job to be friendly. It’s a reporter’s job to tell the truth.” This tweet set the tone for our conversation.

A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jenn picked up and moved to Chicago to study journalism at DePaul University. Here, she took advantage of her time and interned with the Chicago Tribune, the Council of American-Islamic Relations and finished off her college resume with an internship at NBC5 Chicago under the Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence’s own Carol Marin and Don Moseley. After college, she went west to KLKN-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska. After her first market, she then headed east and made temporary roots in Buffalo, New York where she has been working for WIVB for 3 years.

Schanz is the recipient of several impressive awards – a regional Edward R. Murrow award, three Associated Press awards and a Nebraska Broadcasters Association Gold Award. Some of these awards came from projects and stories Schanz had been following for some time. So, I asked her, as someone who has been working on stories longer than just the daily deadline, how does she keep from getting invested in a story and developing personal biases? This is something Schanz and her station are currently trying to tackle. A big story unfolding right now for WIVB pertains to the Catholic Diocese and abuse allegations. Schanz said that when you speak to people and hear their stories it’s hard not to become invested. Schanz admits that it is “unrealistic to not draw any biases.” But also says that reporters should recognize these biases exist. Jenn says that she routinely checks herself by having several people read over her story before it makes its way onto air. Doing this ensures the story is as objective as possible.

When dealing with sensitive stories like the one that’s unfolding in the Buffalo Catholic Diocese, Jenn says it’s important to have sources and establish these relationships early in your career. Having these relationships with people in the community helps, but it is also essential to fact check them and not get too comfortable in the relationships. Shanz says that she will always push people to expand by doing so professionally. She says there is a difference between professional and pushy. Once Schanz made twelve calls in a day to a Public Information Officer, this she said was being persistent – “It’s in the tone.”

Navigating these professional relationships within your market can sometimes be a bit tricky. She’s seen reporters who come off too strong and bombard someone with questions to the point they no longer want to speak to the media and she’s also seen people who don’t challenge public officials, taking everything they say at face value. There is a happy medium and Schanz tries to meet this on every interview she does – She refuses to let anyone push their own agenda and she’s not afraid to fact check them. At the end of the day, she says “making people uncomfortable is our job.”

Schanz on top of this also had advice for journalists about to break into the industry. First, she mentioned the paycheck. She knows the struggle of making little money but she does believe with time it gets better. She also believes a reporter stepping into their first market should take advantage of local and community papers. Here, she said she has found hidden gems for story ideas and these outlets have kept her even more informed about the community she was living in.

Something else that she believes new reporters need to know is that it is not all about them. She shares that she has seen too often young reporters taking selfies and making stories all about themselves, when in reality our job is a service to the people. Sometimes it seems innocent taking a selfie or being on your phone, but to others in the community it could be seen as insensitive or inconsiderate. A time she remembers being held accountable and learning from this very mistake was when Schanz was with her photographer and they made a parody lip sync video for social media. Schanz mentioned that Don Moseley of the Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence politely informed her that this could potentially be taken the wrong way by her audience. This ultimately was not her intent but Schanz removed the video immediately. This is an example highlighting something that seems innocent on the surface but could do some damage if the story that’s being reported is sensitive.

Finally, Schanz has agreed that at times it is hard to keep from becoming complacent and comfortable in the role of a reporter, especially on the first few jobs. The best advice she offers is to keep challenging yourself and not just come to work and leave. She made staying informed and following her favorite journalists a priority. It wasn’t the paycheck, time off, or enterprise stories that pushed her over the first job hurdle, but rather the satisfaction she got out of telling a good story.

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By Marissa Nelson

 Seasoned global correspondent talks about her responsibilities as a journalist

 The famine in Ethiopiafrom 1983 until 1985 was the first traumatic story Martha Raddatz covered as a young reporter.

 “It was stunning,” Raddatz said over the phone. “I mean people were dying right next to us. Mothers were running after our truck trying to give us their children so they wouldn’t starve.”

 One night, as Ethiopians and volunteers washed and dressed the dead in white shrouds before burial, Raddatz remembers walking up a hill toward a large tent to distance herself from the “intimate scene.” 

“I was crying and then I remember just thinking, ‘I had no right to do that, I was not the one suffering,’” Raddatz said. “I have a job bigger than myself where I can tell people about that and hope that people would care or could help, or just in anyway inform the world what is going on in certain countries.”

For Raddatz, journalism isn’t just something she wants to do (which she does). However, it is also a job that she feels she has a responsibility to do, particularly when it comes to reporting on U.S. forces and global affairs. And she does so with respect, dignity and intentional decisions based on journalism ethics and objectivity. For instance, she wears bright colored scarves in war zones and finds unique locations to report from, like an ice fishing festivalin South Korea, near the North Korean border.

“They’re important stories for Americans to see and important stories for Americans to learn about the world, what our place is in the world, what our responsibilities are in the world and how that affects people,” Raddatz said.

Raddatz is the Chief Global Affairs Correspondent at ABC News and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanoupolis.” She has had a versatile career covering everything from presidential campaigns and the Pentagon to reporting from conflict zones around the world including Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

Though Raddatz appreciates being able to use her skill set in many different ways, she doesn’t hesitate to name her favorite. “Oh, definitely international reporting,” Raddatz said. “I would probably rather be covering conflict in Iraq than doing a presidential debate, but they’re both very challenging in very different ways.”

Raddatz’s journalism career began the day she dropped out of college during her junior year at the University of Utah to work at KTVX, a local TV station in Utah. Since then, Raddatz has developed a remarkable resume. She has been the chief correspondent at the ABC affiliate in Boston, the Pentagon correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) and the White House correspondent for ABC. She co-moderated the town hall presidential debatein October 2016 between now President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And she’s the only television reporter who has flown in an F-15 fighter jetto cover a combat mission over Afghanistan.

Raddatz flying in an F-15 Fighter Jet in 2010. (Image courtesy of ABC News)

Raddatz has been recognized many times for her reporting, both domestic and international. She has earned four Emmy awards, the Walter Cronkite award for excellence in political journalism and the Daniel Pearl Award from the Chicago Journalists Association. Most recently, Raddatz received the George Catlett Marshall Medalfrom the Association of the U.S. Army, which she is “really, really, really” proud of.

“Fewer than one percent of our country is serving and it’s a voice that has to be heard,” Raddatz said. “These people are volunteering for all of us. I couldn’t not do it. It was, it is too important not to do.”

Having spent 25 years reporting on the U.S. military, Raddatz has built relationships with those in the armed forces, including soldiers and their families. However, Raddatz said that these relationships do not inhibit her reporting.

 “The people I respect the most in the military understand that part of my job is if something goes wrong I need to report that,” Raddatz said. She mentioned a book she wrote in 2011, “The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family,” about a 2004 battle in Sadr City, Iraq that killed eight American soldiers. Last year, National Geographic turned it into a seven part documentary series. Raddatz said she knows the soldiers in the battle like she knows her family, and she knows their families too.

 “I really would givehuge props to the army for cooperating with that because it was a story about things gone wrong,” Raddatz said. “It was a story of heroism, but it was also a story of one of those who was injured badly became an anti-war protester and the army said, ‘Tell the whole story, just tell the truth.’”

 No matter the relationships she’s cultivated with her sources, when reporting on U.S. policies and what they do, Raddatz said that she does so objectively. She said that it’s important for a journalist to monitor and question their work, asking, “Am I doing this right? Am I staying objective?”

 Though objectivity, for Raddatz, isn’t simple. It’s not black and white and there’s no clear rule to follow. It takes judgement, introspection and continuous personal evaluation. For instance, Raddatz said that she is not objective about service and sacrifice.

“I’m an American, too,” Raddatz said. She mentioned a time when she reported in Africa and another reporter, who was moved by the poverty and starvation, wanted to help the community they were in on his day off. His editor said he couldn’t because he was becoming too involved in the story.

“My reaction to that is, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Raddatz said. “That reporter wanted to help people. Helping people and, as I said, service and sacrifice, I think cross no ethical lines. We are human beings and I think better reporters have a soul. They understand the complexities of the world and want to make it a better place. ”

 Header image courtesy of Politico

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