On impulse, she took a tour of the campus, and by the start of her junior year, she was enrolled in Carolina’s journalism school.Īnother redirect came in the spring semester of her senior year, when Baldwin was the camerawoman for UNC-TV’s news show. On her way back to the College of William & Mary as a sophomore, she dropped a friend off in Chapel Hill.

“Every day I walk into CNN and know that I am so lucky to have landed in a career path that totally jibes with who I am and what I love,” Baldwin said. She knows all too well the bumpy road from those do-it-yourself days to the glass tower of New York’s Time Warner Center, where she hosts the mid-afternoon shift of CNN Newsroom. She also taps her breadth of knowledge to ask incisive questions of policy wonks or other experts.īrooke Baldwin ’01 (Photo by Ray Black III)īaldwin also remembers the variety of skills she employed in her early days in broadcasting, when she would write the newscast script and then scroll the teleprompter with her foot under the desk to deliver it on air. When CNN executive producer Eric Hall refers to anchor Brooke Baldwin as “a Swiss army knife of talent,” he’s talking about her ability to connect with a range of audiences, to shift emotions seamlessly from a heart-warming human-interest piece to a straight news report to a gut-wrenching breaking-news story. The GAA has given the awards since 1989, recognizing alumni age 40 or younger at the time of their selection for bringing credit to the University through their achievements.

The awards were presented by the GAA Board of Directors at its fall meeting.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ’03 (MA), of Brooklyn, N.Y., award-winning education features writer for The New York Times Magazine.

Nicholas Black ’13 (MBA), of Mount Pleasant, S.C., founder of entrepreneurial nonprofits and.

Brooke Baldwin ’01, of New York, TV anchor for CNN’s afternoon news show.

The GAA recognized two journalists and a nonprofit entrepreneur with its Distinguished Young Alumni Awards on Friday. The GAA’s 2017 Distinguished Young Alumni Award recipients: Brooke Baldwin ’01, left, Nicholas Black ’13 (MBA) and Nikole Hannah-Jones ’03 (MA).

Brooke baldwin about hiring veterans