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| December 5, 2002 Volume 24, No. 15
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Three Harpur alumni tell how it’s done
By Ingrid Husisian
How do you get a job in TV? Nearly 100 students flocked to UU-133 to learn how three Harpur College alumni got their start in the business.
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| Marjorie Cohn ’78 talks to students in Maria Gillan’s writing classes during a visit to campus November 26. Cohn, senior production vice president for Nickelodeon, was one of three Harpur College alumni on campus to talk about careers in the TV industry. |
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On November 25, Andrew Goldstein ’84, a producer for NBC’s Today Show; Marjorie Cohn ’78, senior vice president of production for Nickelodeon; and Michelle Altman ’75, associate head writer for ABC’s One Life To Live, participated in a panel discussion about how they got their jobs and how today’s students can get a foot in the door of an industry that is known for its fierce competition.
Goldstein, a literature and rhetoric major, told how he first worked for the Manhattan law firm of Skadden Arps with the thought of attending law school. The experience changed his mind and he began working in the TV industry at several low-level jobs. In 1985, he became a page at NBC, and graduated to being a production associate and researcher before becoming a producer.
Cohn, while at BU, was an art major and a puppet designer and creator at the Starry Night Puppet Theater in Binghamton. After graduation, she worked a brief stint with the now defunct “Channel 13 Antiques Auction,” before moving on to be production coordinator at Nickelodeon. She credited her BU art and puppetry experience with teaching her about children’s entertainment.
Cohn sparked a familiar note with the audience, telling them that when she started at Nickelodeon. “It was when Double Dare started.” Many in the audience would have been watching the show when it was aired. “I got slimed the day before I got married,” she said.
Altman’s experience was a little more unusual. “I was here at the end of the Vietnam War, which means I had no idea what I wanted to do,” she told the panel.
After graduation, Altman worked as an assistant editor with a sports magazine while performing in plays and doing stand-up comedy. Her break came when she co-wrote, The Amazin’ Casey Stengel, which ran in New York City in 1981 and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award the same year. She also co-wrote the 1986 movie, Sweet Lorraine. After writing several pilots for TV, Altman got a contract for the series Kate & Allie. In 1998, she began writing for One Life to Live, which won an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series this year for the first time. “I think I’ve got the coolest job on the planet,” she said.
During the question and answer period, the three left students with one overwhelming message: to launch a career in television, get an internship and make contacts in the field.
“Do well on your internship and they’ll remember you when you come back asking for a job,” Altman said.
“It’s about relationships,” said Cohn.
Students were also told that without internships they should gain experience at smaller stations before moving on to progressively larger stations.
To get an edge Goldstein recommended that students have a background in something special like computers, sports or science. Cohn added, “Do something that shows you’ve got initiative.”
Students also had some uncomfortable questions. “Was there any debate at Today about airing Katie Couric’s colonoscopy?” asked one. Goldstein said it was in good taste and the network tried not to be sensational. “It was a good cause, close to Katie Couric’s heart because her husband died from colon cancer,” he explained, “We warned the audience in advance that it would be graphic.”
A member of the audience asked Cohn about the backlash against Rosie O’Donnell for talking about homosexuality on Nick News. She said the president of Nickelodeon wanted to do the story because many children grow up with same-sex parents. Nickelodeon suggested the story to a conservative group and they revolted with an e-mail campaign, slamming the station for the idea. The show eventually aired, but Cohn said, “We can’t take kids where parents don’t want them to go.”
Altman explained that the network has final say over controversial topics. “To this day,” she said, “no soap opera has done an abortion story.”
After the question and answer session, students bombarded the trio with questions and resumes. “I really enjoyed it, said James Calizaire ’03. “I didn’t know BU had graduates in these great jobs!”
From camels to space, TV has it all for producer
By Marty Doorey
Andrew Goldstein didn’t really know what he wanted to do when he began looking for work in New York City’s television industry. Whatever it was, it did not involve almost getting run over by a camel as he was walking down his office building corridor.
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Goldstein
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Nearly 100 people attended the panel discussion November 25, which also featured Michelle Altman ’75, a writer for the Emmy winning daytime drama, One Life to Live, and Marjorie Cohn ’78, senior vice president for production for Nickelodeon.
Each of the three alumni spent the afternoon talking with students about their careers. Cohen and Altman met with creative writing students from professors Jamie Colbert and Maria Gillan’s classes.
Goldstein, in a public speaking and portfolio preparation class taught by Elizabeth Carter, director of the University’s Discovery Program, repeatedly stressed writing ability as a key to job success — no matter what the job. “Writing is a big thing. Writing skills are very big,” he said.
As one of 40 producers for Today, Goldstein serves as an off-air reporter, fact checker and writer for segments that appear during some of the news segments of the three-hour daily show.
Among his war stories is one about a camel that had broken away from its handlers prior to an appearance on the David Letterman Show, and almost ran Goldstein down in the hall at NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters.
He also stressed the importance of having good contacts. Sources he’d developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) paid off handsomely for Goldstein several years ago when he got a veiled tip that John Glenn, then a U.S. Senator from Ohio and one of America’s first seven astronauts, would be going back into space at age 77.
When Glenn was launched into space in October 1998, Goldstein was at the launch pad next to former astronauts Scott Carpenter and Wally Schirra. “It was like The Right Stuff,” Goldstein said referring to the movie about the early space program.
“It was really weird working next to history while history was happening,” he said.