Sarah Rosenberg: The Power of Persuasion 

As Sarah Rosenberg, BA ’98, told it on ABC’s “Nightline” recently, she was sitting in her GW dorm room vegging out, surrounded by pizza boxes, when she saw a disabled classmate run past her window. Rosenberg remembered watching the inspiring amputee athlete and thinking, “What am I doing with my life?”

Several years later, the answer is: plenty. Rosenberg, a producer with “Nightline,” has produced countless informative and inspiring stories. She has covered big issues, from the war in Iraq to pediatric AIDS in South Africa. “It has changed my life completely being able to see on the ground what most people only see on television,” she says.

When Rosenberg arrived at the Columbian College, she initially had political science on her mind. But a communications course called “Persuasion,” along with experience gained in and outside of the classroom, swept her off her feet and into the world of broadcast journalism. “GW is so different from most colleges,” she says. “The University is work-oriented, with many students more interested in going to internships than football games. That experience prepared me well for life after college – that’s the whole reason I got to know the area of communications and get the great job I have now.”

In true GW fashion, she gained an internship with Worldwide Television News in London. That experience gave her contacts that helped her land a desk position with ABC. She worked her way up to her current position with ABC in New York; her responsibilities include everything from developing story ideas to going out with the camera crew to shoot footage. She says change and transition have made the work especially interesting: “I worked with Ted Koppel until last year. Now the show has a different, maybe hipper style of producing the same kinds of stories on social issues.”