Two 1-Year Broadcast Journalism students, Urvashi Barua and Alisa Rajkitkul, from the New York Film Academy had the honor of visiting the White House to cover President Barack Obama’s meeting with the NCAA Champion Villanova University Men’s Basketball Team.
Having previously covered the New York State Presidential Primary as part of their course work, they are now considered-at least for the day-members of the White House press corps.
Urvashi comes from Assam, India, while Alisa most recently lived in San Francisco. The two are regular contributors to NYFA News, a biweekly news magazine produced at NYFA’s 17 Battery Place campus in Manhattan. Initially they planned to go to Washington, DC to cover the national Memorial Day observations. On the off-chance they might also gain admittance to the Tuesday press conference, they approached the White House press office. Submitting an application was no easy task. It all came down to persistence. After being vetted by the Secret Service, on Thursday evening they were notified that they could attend the Tuesday, May 31st afternoon press conference, which took place in the Palm Room of the White House.
“It was always my dream to be a television journalist,” says Alisa Rajkitkul. “I never imagined one day going to the White House.” Alisa and her teenage son left San Francisco, so she could attend NYFA. Urvashi Barua came from halfway around the world. Like her classmate, she chose the New York Film Academy in order to learn the skills essential to being a successful multimedia journalist. “I could not believe it when I got the chance to cover stories involving Bill Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Now, I will attend a Presidential press conference!”
According to Broadcast Journalism Chair Bill Einreinhofer, “This opportunity wasn’t a matter of luck. Rather, it is an example of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.”
The NYFA Broadcast Journalism program was established in 2009, and has trained multimedia journalists who went on to work as reporters, anchors, producers and editors at television stations and networks, as well as digital news sites, both overseas and throughout the United States.