SYRACUSE, N.Y.-- Katie Benoit (Ben-OIT) has recently embarked on a new journey in life. She is a member of the Class of 2018 Broadcast & Digital Journalism master's program in the prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
Benoit, also majored in journalism during her undergraduate studies. She makes it clear she has no questions about what she desires to be in life, a sports journalist and sideline reporter.
“It’s always what I wanted to do” Benoit said during an interview.
Benoit played multiple sports growing up, including basketball, soccer and track once she reached college, but her excitement for sports started when she was young. At age nine, she began playing softball, which she says would ultimately lead to deepening her bond with her family as they gathered nightly to watch baseball.
Pairing her enthusiasm for sports with motivation received from people who include her college track coach and former Sports Desk lead anchor Hazel Mae, Benoit is now in full pursuit of her goals.
Upon completion of the school year, she expects to have put herself one step closer to achieving her dreams.
Read my full interview with Benoit below or click here to listen to the audio of our one on one.
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Interviewer: You’re in Syracuse, here in a program at Syracuse University, the broadcast (&) digital journalism program. What brought you? What made you choose Syracuse?
Benoit: The reputation of the program. Everyone kind of in sports journalism, a lot of people went to Syracuse and actually I talked to my track coach. His ex-girlfriend went here for the broadcast program and he was kind of like they have a top school. If you want to be on the top, if you want to be the best of the best, if you want to get a job, then you should go there and I think he was really the one that convinced me and kind of showed (me), he showed me hard work and it made me realize like yea if I go here I’ll probably get a good job.
Interviewer: Ok and what brought you to... cause you’re doing the sports program as well, like what made you choose to decide to do that?
Benoit: So when I was 9, I started playing softball and once I started playing, me and my family got into baseball so we’d watch baseball games every night and I kind of just started to love baseball. I’d memorize the lineup, I was the girl in the class that liked sports and you know, all the other girls didn’t and so yea. I kind of watched a lot of games and stuff and then on SN sports desk, Hazel Mae at the time was anchoring it, and I kind of thought that’s so cool. I want to be a sports reporter and she was a girl so that kind of made me realize there’s opportunities for girls to be able to do this. So ever since then, like I had to write a paper and I think a year later and it was like what do you want to be when you grow up and I was like I want to be a journalist. I want to be a sports reporter and ever since then that’s what I wanted to be.
Interviewer: That’s still the focus now, you still want to be a sports reporter?
Benoit: I do yea, I mean I also like news as well. In undergrad I also did journalism and it was sports journalism as well, but my minor was in criminal justice, so I’m kind of interested in crime pieces as well so I’d be really fine working in news or in sports.
Interviewer: What was the deciding factor that made you say you know I’ll go more to sports as opposed to the criminal journalism aspect of it?
Benoit: I guess cause it’s always what I wanted to do and I feel like you can do both, like you can do news and sports so I guess it’s better to have a little bit of a sports concentration, but I know in our classes we’re going to be working on news pieces as well so I feel like I’m going to get both types of packages, all types of radio pieces.
Interviewer: So you played softball when you were younger, did you play anything collegiately?
Benoit: Yea I did. I ran cross country and I ran track.
Interviewer: Didn’t play any softball?
Benoit: No, I did not.
Interviewer: What happened to softball?
Benoit: I kind of just stopped playing. I played my freshman year in high school and then I transferred high schools and then I was like, I’m probably not going to make the team so I just didn’t even bother trying out.
Interviewer: So how are you liking Syracuse thus far?
Benoit: I like it a lot actually. It’s kind of different than I expected, but everyone’s really nice. The program’s pretty good. It’s kind of hard a little bit, but I expected it to be hard. I expected it to be a little worse. I’m probably saying that now and it probably will get a lot worse so ha, but yea.
Interviewer: Are there any major differences between here and back home for you?
Benoit: Definitely. So I kind of come from, I’m from a really small state, there’s a lot of oceans so the beach is like 40 minutes away from me, but there’s smaller beaches closer to my house so I’m used to seeing the water, where this is kind of like you know, in New York not really near the water. Also, I mean I went to high school in the city and I went to undergrad in the city too, but my campus was outside of the city so I feel like it’s definitely different for me to be inside a city, kind of like walking around, exploring, walking to class, things like that and you know I’ve never really, I went to school in Massachusetts that’s like New England so I’ve never really been outside of New England living wise.
Interviewer: So as an aspiring journalist, of course one of the aspects of being a journalist is interviewing people, so if you could interview anybody dead or alive, who would you interview and why?
Benoit: That’s a good question… Going to have to take a minute to think about it.
Interviewer: No problem take all the time you want, but not too much time.
Benoit: I know.
Interviewer: Want to come back to that one?
Benoit: Yea, could we?
Interviewer: Alright sure lets come back to that one.
Interviewer: If there was anything from back home that you can bring to Syracuse, what would that be?
Benoit: Probably my dog. Yea paws. He’s like my little brother, I’m an only child so yea.
Interviewer: Do you want to go back to that question?
Benoit: Sure, I guess if I had to pick someone, like I guess recently, I guess I’d pick Isaiah Thomas, 'cause I’m a huge Celtics fan and he’s really cool. He seems like a great guy, and everything he went through this year and still played so well, I think it it’d be really cool to just get to talk to him.
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