News at St. Catherine's
Eugenia Halsey '74
Former CNN correspondent
Eugenia now does narrations for many different organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security, Georgetown Hospital, the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Eugenia now does narrations for many different organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security, Georgetown Hospital, the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
How did St. Catherine’s prepare you for your career at CNN?
St. Catherine’s gave me a strong foundation in writing, an essential skill for any journalist. Television tells stories with pictures, but none of it works if you can’t write. So news directors value people who can produce polished scripts on deadline.
One of my favorite subjects at St. Catherine’s was French. Learning about another culture sparked my interest in world affairs. I gained first-hand experience when I visited France on a minimester trip. In addition, my family hosted an exchange student from England through the American Field Service.
St. Catherine’s emphasis on community service also influenced my decision to become a reporter. Through my exposure to those less fortunate, I realized that public policy can change lives. I wanted to make people aware of those issues.
What classes/teachers had the biggest impact?
My English and French classes had the most influence on my decision to become a journalist. I especially remember writing classes with Elizabeth Morgan. She taught us how to tell a good story. I also enjoyed learning about French literature, culture and history in Ann Archer’s French classes and became interested in world events.
My fondest memory of St. Catherine’s was a minimester trip to France led by Barbara Robertson and Dale Bishop. We took a train from Paris to Cannes where we explored the French Riviera with its fishing villages, Matisse paintings, and medieval walled towns perched on top of cliffs.
What advice would you give to current seniors?
Try out a number of activities in college; you never know where they’ll lead. A friend persuaded me to join the campus radio station. Although I wasn’t cut out to be a disc jockey, I ended up becoming a newscaster which led to a career as a CNN correspondent.
In trying to choose a career, think about what you love to do and are good at. Then, consider a profession that combines those interests and strengths. I enjoyed writing, languages, announcing, photography and current events. I eventually settled on a career in the media.
More on Halsey’s career with CNN:
One of the best aspects of my career at CNN was learning something new every day and sitting on the front row as history unfolded. I will never forget being in the Washington bureau the night of January 16, 1991 when the first Persian Gulf War started. We were riveted as correspondents Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett, and John Holliman, hiding under desks in their hotel room, described the bombs falling around them in Baghdad during Operation Desert Storm. It was the first time any television network had covered a war live with pictures and the atmosphere in the newsroom was electric.
I didn’t grow up wanting to be on TV. When I arrived at the University of Virginia in 1974, I had no idea what kind of career I would pursue. But that changed after St. Catherine’s classmate and fellow UVa freshman Deane Suter urged me to audition for the campus radio station with her. Although I wasn’t cut out to be a disc jockey, the station made me a newscaster. I soon discovered how much I enjoyed it. When I was assigned to cover a civil rights protest on campus, I was hooked and journalism became a calling. I took as many relevant courses as I could, including a U.S. History seminar in which I got to know a bubbly young classmate named Katie Couric. Even then, Katie was nabbing interviews for The Cavalier Daily with UVa’s most celebrated professors!
After graduating from UVa with an English degree, I worked for WRVA radio in Richmond as a news reporter and anchor. I next joined a TV station in Roanoke as its state capital correspondent. Then, CNN asked me to become the network’s Chicago correspondent. For two years, I covered politics, the mob, farm disasters, flooding, and medical news in the Midwest before moving to Washington, D.C. to join my fiancée, Washington Post reporter Kent Jenkins. In Washington, as a weekend general assignment reporter for CNN, I got to cover a taste of everything from the State Department to the Pentagon to a Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. But I was especially drawn to health issues and began covering government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture. One of the toughest interviews I did was with a young mother whose eight-year-old sign had died from e.coli food poisoning after she grilled a hamburger for him. It was before anyone knew that pink or undercooked ground beef could be fatal. Despite her heartbreak, she was determined to spread the word about the hazards of hamburgers lest anyone else repeat her mistake.
I also covered the scare over Mad Cow Disease, a fatal brain disease that afflicted people in Great Britain who had eaten tainted beef. When the illness first surfaced in England, people in the U.S. worried about whether it could happen here. The F.D.A. assured reporters it could not. It said our laws were tough enough to keep the disease out of the food supply. But I interviewed veterinarians who disputed that and said the laws needed to be tightened. When my report was broadcast on CNN in Japan, the Japanese government threatened to stop buying U.S. beef! That got Congress’ attention and the F.D.A. moved to close the loopholes in our food safety laws.
Not every story was about gloom and doom. I got to interview vintner Robert Mondavi on the terrace of his home in the Napa Valley for a report on wine and health labels. California wineries wanted the government to allow statements on wine bottles saying moderate consumption was good for your heart.
I was never bored working at CNN. The only reason I watched the clock was because it moved too fast. Every day was a race to get a story on the air. In the morning, we would choose a topic, decide who to interview, shoot video, write a script, and by the afternoon, weave the interviews and pictures together with a recorded narration. We would then run the videotape to the control room or dash to the set to do a live introduction and answer questions. It was like making a movie in one day: stressful but exhilarating. And when we told viewers something they needed to know: rewarding.
Back
St. Catherine’s gave me a strong foundation in writing, an essential skill for any journalist. Television tells stories with pictures, but none of it works if you can’t write. So news directors value people who can produce polished scripts on deadline.
One of my favorite subjects at St. Catherine’s was French. Learning about another culture sparked my interest in world affairs. I gained first-hand experience when I visited France on a minimester trip. In addition, my family hosted an exchange student from England through the American Field Service.
St. Catherine’s emphasis on community service also influenced my decision to become a reporter. Through my exposure to those less fortunate, I realized that public policy can change lives. I wanted to make people aware of those issues.
What classes/teachers had the biggest impact?
My English and French classes had the most influence on my decision to become a journalist. I especially remember writing classes with Elizabeth Morgan. She taught us how to tell a good story. I also enjoyed learning about French literature, culture and history in Ann Archer’s French classes and became interested in world events.
My fondest memory of St. Catherine’s was a minimester trip to France led by Barbara Robertson and Dale Bishop. We took a train from Paris to Cannes where we explored the French Riviera with its fishing villages, Matisse paintings, and medieval walled towns perched on top of cliffs.
What advice would you give to current seniors?
Try out a number of activities in college; you never know where they’ll lead. A friend persuaded me to join the campus radio station. Although I wasn’t cut out to be a disc jockey, I ended up becoming a newscaster which led to a career as a CNN correspondent.
In trying to choose a career, think about what you love to do and are good at. Then, consider a profession that combines those interests and strengths. I enjoyed writing, languages, announcing, photography and current events. I eventually settled on a career in the media.
More on Halsey’s career with CNN:
One of the best aspects of my career at CNN was learning something new every day and sitting on the front row as history unfolded. I will never forget being in the Washington bureau the night of January 16, 1991 when the first Persian Gulf War started. We were riveted as correspondents Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett, and John Holliman, hiding under desks in their hotel room, described the bombs falling around them in Baghdad during Operation Desert Storm. It was the first time any television network had covered a war live with pictures and the atmosphere in the newsroom was electric.
I didn’t grow up wanting to be on TV. When I arrived at the University of Virginia in 1974, I had no idea what kind of career I would pursue. But that changed after St. Catherine’s classmate and fellow UVa freshman Deane Suter urged me to audition for the campus radio station with her. Although I wasn’t cut out to be a disc jockey, the station made me a newscaster. I soon discovered how much I enjoyed it. When I was assigned to cover a civil rights protest on campus, I was hooked and journalism became a calling. I took as many relevant courses as I could, including a U.S. History seminar in which I got to know a bubbly young classmate named Katie Couric. Even then, Katie was nabbing interviews for The Cavalier Daily with UVa’s most celebrated professors!
After graduating from UVa with an English degree, I worked for WRVA radio in Richmond as a news reporter and anchor. I next joined a TV station in Roanoke as its state capital correspondent. Then, CNN asked me to become the network’s Chicago correspondent. For two years, I covered politics, the mob, farm disasters, flooding, and medical news in the Midwest before moving to Washington, D.C. to join my fiancée, Washington Post reporter Kent Jenkins. In Washington, as a weekend general assignment reporter for CNN, I got to cover a taste of everything from the State Department to the Pentagon to a Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. But I was especially drawn to health issues and began covering government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture. One of the toughest interviews I did was with a young mother whose eight-year-old sign had died from e.coli food poisoning after she grilled a hamburger for him. It was before anyone knew that pink or undercooked ground beef could be fatal. Despite her heartbreak, she was determined to spread the word about the hazards of hamburgers lest anyone else repeat her mistake.
I also covered the scare over Mad Cow Disease, a fatal brain disease that afflicted people in Great Britain who had eaten tainted beef. When the illness first surfaced in England, people in the U.S. worried about whether it could happen here. The F.D.A. assured reporters it could not. It said our laws were tough enough to keep the disease out of the food supply. But I interviewed veterinarians who disputed that and said the laws needed to be tightened. When my report was broadcast on CNN in Japan, the Japanese government threatened to stop buying U.S. beef! That got Congress’ attention and the F.D.A. moved to close the loopholes in our food safety laws.
Not every story was about gloom and doom. I got to interview vintner Robert Mondavi on the terrace of his home in the Napa Valley for a report on wine and health labels. California wineries wanted the government to allow statements on wine bottles saying moderate consumption was good for your heart.
I was never bored working at CNN. The only reason I watched the clock was because it moved too fast. Every day was a race to get a story on the air. In the morning, we would choose a topic, decide who to interview, shoot video, write a script, and by the afternoon, weave the interviews and pictures together with a recorded narration. We would then run the videotape to the control room or dash to the set to do a live introduction and answer questions. It was like making a movie in one day: stressful but exhilarating. And when we told viewers something they needed to know: rewarding.
Located in the heart of Richmond, Virginia, St. Catherine’s School is a private, all-girls pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. We provide a well-rounded educational experience for girls from communities across Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and all of central Virginia. St.Catherine’s all-girls educational experience is rooted in more than a century of history and tradition. From our revolutionary past to our dynamic present, St. Catherine’s has always focused on preparing students for a boundless future.
