CNN anchor and J-school alumna Brooke Baldwin delivered the school's spring 2014 commencement address on Sunday, May 11, in Carmichael Arena.
Watch Baldwin's address:
Baldwin, a 2001 graduate of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, anchors from 2-4 p.m. on CNN from the network's headquarters in Atlanta. Since 2008, she has covered breaking news events from behind the desk and in the field for CNN.
She headlined a talk as part of the school's Women in Media Leadership Series Sept. 27, 2013.
In 2012, she reported live from Newtown, Conn., in the days following the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. She co-anchored CNN's global coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee with Piers Morgan in London. She covered the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, anchoring from the Republican National Convention and participating in the network's primetime coverage of the GOP primaries. Baldwin anchored breaking news coverage of the Arab Spring, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Benghazi attack, the death of Osama bin Laden and the crisis in Syria.
She has been a part of CNN teams honored with Peabody Awards and a Silver World Medal for Best Investigative Report at the New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards.
Baldwin joined CNN after serving as a lead reporter for the 10 p.m. newscast for WTTG in Washington, D.C., where she covered the shooting massacres at both Virginia Tech and the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room Amish schoolhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania.
At WOWK in West Virginia, she was morning anchor and reported the Sago Mine collapse and Martha Stewart's release from federal prison. She began her career at WVIR in Charlottesville, Va.