{"id":18052,"date":"2024-02-12T16:09:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T21:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=18052"},"modified":"2024-02-22T10:53:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:53:59","slug":"launchpad-morgan-alston-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/launchpad-morgan-alston-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Launchpad: Morgan Alston \u201923"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By the time she graduated last May, Morgan Alston had held six internships, was a published writer, was a podcast host and creator, and had two full-time job offers lined up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After spending half a year as a studio production assistant at NFL Films, she recently made the move to ESPN, where she is on the field production unit, traveling to games and special events like the Super Bowl, NBA draft, and NFL combine, interviewing and reporting on athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n

How I Got Here<\/h2>\n\n\n

I always loved TV but never got to experience it. When I got to Monmouth and saw they have their own studio, control room, and cameras, I fell in love. At HawkTV, I got the hands-on experience I needed to figure out what I liked and didn\u2019t like, and what I needed to improve on. I know that it was my experience as an anchor and producer at HawkTV, along with my writing experience at the Outlook, that helped me get to where I am today.<\/p>\n\n\n

Career Goals<\/h2>\n\n\n

My goal is to one day be the face of ESPN, a black woman taking over sports media. I want to be like Taylor Rooks and Malika Andrews, who are big names in sports. If I could even be half as successful as them one day, I would be so happy.<\/p>\n\n\n

Monmouth Mentors <\/h2>\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not a good writer, you can\u2019t be a good producer, storyteller, or reporter, and Professor Michael Thomas really tested my creativity and pushed me to become the best writer that I can be. Professor Nick Messina helped me so much too. He got me into podcasting, gave me voice lessons, and helped me in my job search\u2014he was fantastic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2023 communications graduate is a production assistant at ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":18055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":45,\"y\":31}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[93,81],"class_list":["post-18052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-back","tag-alumni-donor-profiles","tag-alumni-profile"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"The Back","issue":"Fall\/Winter 2023","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18062,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18052\/revisions\/18062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}