3 recent grads pursue broadcasting careers at NBC

Three recent graduates of Eastern's communications, film, and theatre (CFT) program have landed jobs in broadcast journalism. Griffin Davis ‘25, Emily Madden ‘26, and Zoe Calhoun ‘26 are three of the newest employees at NBC Connecticut.  

A commonality among the alumni is prior involvement with ETV News, Eastern’s student-run television news program that hosts livestreams on YouTube every week. “Eastern has a very long tradition of providing curricular experiences in multi-camera live television production for news and sports,” said CFT Professor Andrew Utterback, ETV's advisor. “Those experiences allow students to move into entry-level jobs with local media companies.”  

Calhoun, who anchored ETV News, started at NBC in September as a production assistant (PA). Calhoun does a little bit of everything, from preparing the talent and making sure everything on set runs smoothly to editing short videos.   

Calhoun got her bachelor's degree in both theatre and communications at Eastern before both programs were merged into the CFT major. Calhoun said both share the same fundamentals: creative performance.   

“What I really enjoy about theatre and the news is it's all very creative at the end of the day,” said Calhoun. “The news is basically theatre but with technology ... theatre experience translates really well for the news.”  

Davis is a multimedia platform editor at NBC. He works on a team to edit shows before they broadcast and edits videos for social media posts. He edits 40-50 videos on any given day and struggled at first to stifle his inner perfectionist to meet the job's demands and deadlines.  

“It took a lot of time and a lot of getting over myself,” Davis said while referring to his perfectionism. “I had to trust the fact that I could get the work done and learn to rely on the [editing] team.   

Last but certainly not least is Madden, a PA for the technology operations department. Unlike Calhoun, who typically works on set, Madden coordinates event requests, monitors on-air programming, and helps the technical team ensure broadcasts run smoothly.  

Madden was an NCAA Division III swimmer and two-time conference champion at Eastern. Madden said her time as a swimmer gave her the discipline she needed to handle the most challenging part of working at NBC: waking up at 2:45 a.m.   

“I was up at 5:30 [a.m.], ready to jump in the pool at 6:30,” said Madden. “That helped me through working mornings at NBC because I know that I can do hard things.” 

During her time at Eastern, Madden was the executive producer and president of ETV News. She says that as an executive producer, she became intimately familiar with the technical side of the news before starting her job at NBC.  

“I had my hands in a lot of different areas at ETV,” said Madden. “All of the things that you would ultimately need for the job.”