When Michelle Boniface, class of ’05, landed a page job with “60 Minutes” last September, she never imagined she would be working on set so quickly. But when executive producer Jeff Fager and executive editor Bill Owens decided to do a segment on champion racehorse Zenyatta, they knew just who to call on for expertise in the horse-racing industry.
Growing up on a horse farm in Harford County, Boniface has been around horses her entire life. So along with producer Tom Anderson and correspondent Bill Simon, Boniface flew to Zenyatta’s stable in Southern California for the assignment.
Zenyatta, a six-year-old American Thoroughbred, has won 19 races out of 20 attempts with the only loss of her career coming on Nov. 6 in her second attempt at the Breeders’ Classic Cup in Louisville, Kentucky.
Boniface got the chance to explain to Simon and Anderson just how special a horse can be, especially one of Zenyatta’s caliber. “I was so lucky that my bosses thought I could really add to the story,” she said. “I really have been wanting to travel, and to be able to first do that for a horse racing story is unbelievable. When they decided to do the story, they said ‘you’re going,’” Boniface said. “I have been on shots in New York City before, but to be traveling and to really be imbedded in the team and story was very exciting.”
Majoring in Mass Communications with a minor in Environmental Studies, Boniface graduated from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, in 2009. “W & L’s journalism program was amazing,” Boniface said. “We produced live news and a half hour news show every week and that really helped me prepare for working in the industry. The professors there are really supportive and the journalism school was like a family.”
While in college, Boniface also got some experience under her belt in the journalistic field. “I interned with CBS in New York the summer after my junior year of college and loved it,” she said.
Though she interned with “CBS Evening News,” Boniface wanted to work for “60 Minutes.” “I really wanted to be at ‘60 Minutes,’ but they weren’t really hiring. So I decided just to move to New York and figure it out from there,” she said. Luckily, Boniface got the entry-level job after going on several interviews following her graduation in June.
Aside from her recent duties on-set, Boniface’s day-to-day tasks include assisting the executive producer as well as the director of the show.
“I help run our story idea system, called the Blusheet system, and help maintain the office,” she said.
Boniface also works as “a broadcast associate and sometimes associate producer on stories. That part is amazing because you are really involved and have a direct hand in what goes on air.”
Before getting into the journalistic world, Boniface admits she really thought she was going to be a jockey. “I never took any journalism classes at John Carroll and I also didn’t work for the newspaper because I really wasn’t sure at that time what I wanted to do,” Boniface said.
However, she credits the “overall support of the John Carroll teachers that helped me decide that I could and would go to college so I have them to thank for putting me on this path.”
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