For Journalist Alexi Cohan, ELCAT Was the First Step to Success
Dreams of becoming a reporter sparked Alexi Cohan’s interest in TV Production class with ELCAT Director Mr. Don Maki.
Cohan was in 9th grade and the ELCAT studio was in the high school building. Maki was Cohan’s teacher. She credits him with listening to her ideas, empowering her, and continuing to support her throughout her journey. She would work at the cable access station for all four years of high school.
“ELCAT allowed me to expand my skills even further by making my own news packages about the latest happenings in town and even anchoring the weekly news show, which was a blast.”
Cohan also gives credit to Beth Ward, a former news anchor at Western Mass News and host of WGBY’s Schools Match Wits.
“Don Maki and Beth Ward were the perfect mentors for me during that time, and they allowed me to see I could make a career out of it,” Cohan said. “A lot of my dreams today link back to the work I did at ELCAT.”
The dreams Cohan’s developed for journalism starting from her TV production class is something she’s carried with her throughout her entire career.
After graduating from Hofstra University, Cohan spent a few years reporting for the Boston Herald, before recently taking up the job of producing at GBH news.
Her long-time desire to take journalism to the next level is another thing she attributes to the connection to the community she made working at ELCAT.
“My dream is always to connect with my community and make an impact on it through my work as a journalist. We play a crucial role in society to inform others, give a voice to those who don’t have one, hold officials accountable and bring forth change.”
Cohan is extremely grateful to have had the opportunity so early on in her life to take a step into the spectrum of career paths that is journalism, even if her initial love for one aspect of the industry didn’t end up being her personal career path.
“I think I fell in love with reporting and anchoring first, and writing later on,” Cohan said. “I was always a decent writer but never thought about it as a career until high school and into college.”
Despite being a naturally skilled writer, writings’ ever so feared blockade has gotten to Cohan before, but she has a simple fix.
“To shake it, I try to get up, move around or go for a walk to think of a lede and then return.” Cohan said. “Once you have the lede you are well on your way.”
Coming up with a lede is the most important part in the writing process, and one Cohan claims will “shape the whole story while also avoiding pesky writer’s block.”
Writers have different methods for coming up with their ledes. Cohan’s method is a simple question: ‘If I was telling this story to a friend, what is the first most important part I would tell them?”
Mentoring was one of the “crucial steps” needed to take on her career path.
Other steps included “networking, landing some internships, getting out into the community to do ‘boots on the ground’ work, and having passion and believing in yourself!”
Yet another piece of advice Cohan had up to offer was to not get caught up in the glory of big stories. “It’s always better to be right than to be first.”
Through all of the steps and pieces of wisdom she’s learned along the way, Cohan has set herself up to become the successful journalist she is today.
