Kuhn tells how tenacity gets him everywhere
By Colleen Michele Jones
The Rivertowns Enterprise
Friday, May 25, 2007
Page 4
The 2008 presidential race will be the first Eric Kuhn will vote in – this despite the fact that the 19-year-old has been interviewing movers and shakers on the national political scene for years.
Kuhn, a 2005 graduate of Hastings High School, boasts a résumé that reads more like that of a big-league national correspondent than a college students.
In a few short years, Kuhn has landed interviews some career journalists haven't been lucky enough to get. Names like Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan, Al Sharpton, Lou Dobbs.
One NBC news exec has said Kuhn is "already a media giant and can't even legally drink!"
So just how does a kid only in his sophomore year at Hamilton College get high-profile personalities like these to talk to him?
Kuhn clued students in to some of the secrets to his success when he returned to his alma mater last Friday (May 18) to lecture on the role citizen journalism plays in "new media," the loose term for the gumbo of podcasts, blogs, and websites that have sprung up over the past few years to feed Americans' appetite for 24/7 news.
Kuhn knows this world because he works in it – feverishly blogging on political sites like The Huffington Post into the wee hours of the morning from his dorm room in upstate New York.
From these same humble headquarters, he runs his own website, a self-promoting tool featuring podcasts and links to other media interviews he's done. He is a talk radio host. He edits his college newspaper. And he helps publish PBase Magazine, an innovative site of online photography that Kuhn helped pitch and create.
Oh yeah, and he takes time to fit in college classes, too.
His admittedly sleep-deprived schedule is fueled by a steady supply of caffeine.
"I'm really good friends with people at Starbucks," Kuhn laughs.
But Kuhn told the freshman and sophomores in John Buchanan's contemporary politics class that anyone with a computer and an inclination can be a kind of news correspondent from their own living room. In his presentation, Kuhn pointed out how CNN transformed the all-news-all-the-time media industry and how newspapers are now making online sites the center of their organizations. In recent years, Youtube.com and an explosion of blogs have now put news gathering and commentating in the hands of those without journalism degrees.
"You, you, and you," he said, pointing around the classroom to emphasize the democracy of the interactive new media age. "'Time named their Person of the Year 'You.''"
Young news junkie snags Sharpton
The news bug bit Kuhn early on. He recalls hating to not get to watch all of the "Today" show to get to school on time. By his senior year at HHS, Kuhn and fellow senior Justin Mandel began WHHS News, a local public access cable show, with the help of English teacher Gerard Marciano as faculty advisor.
Mandel served as the show's producer/director/editor. As the program's "chief political correspondent," Kuhn interviewed Congresswoman Nita Lowey and her opponent, Richard Hoffman, during the 18th Congressional District 2005 race, as well as figures outside the region, like CNN's Jack Cafferty and former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerry.
While still in his senior year, he managed to snag an e-mail interview with "The Donald." And then there was the really big one, with black civil rights leader Al Sharpton.
"If it wasn't for WHHS and Al Sharpton, I probably wouldn't be here," Kuhn says.
Along with mentors he has acquired through some serious networking, like Ardsley's Freddie Dorn (a CNN producer) and Richard Quest (CNN London reporter), the high school broadcast – and Kuhn's interviewing skills – helped make a name for both Kuhn and Mandel, now studying film at the University of Southern California.
Kuhn got home May 11 after spending the spring semester taking classes in Washington, D.C., (he is a government major), as well as working behind the scenes on "Hardball with Chris Matthews," which airs on cable's MSNBC. Kuhn says he fetched "a lot of coffee" but also tended to more serious tasks, like helping Matthews prepare for the recent Republican presidential candidate's debate which he moderated.
A stroll though the HHS halls alongside Kuhn reflects the celebrity he has achieved in the school community. He literally could not walk 2 feet without being ambushed by students and teachers.
Kuhn looks the part, every inch the dressed-for-success go-getter reporter: wire-rim glasses, checkered dress shirt under full suit, Blackberry in hand.
He admits he's obsessed with the news, starting every morning by digesting The New York Times, Washington Post, and online startups like the Drudge Report and TVNewser, as well as cruising a few celebrity news sites (he is, after all, still 19) to get his Hollywood gossip fix.
At college, Kuhn has his own radio talk show, "Kuhn and Company," on which he has conducted call-in interviews with the likes of comedian/commentator Mo Rocca, new media mogul Arianna Huffington, CNN's Lou Dobbs, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, and Ben and Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield, the transcript of which was recently featured on the "Today" show's website.
Into the West Wing
He credits his success in getting interviews to confidence and doggedness. Mostly, he just keeps calling back until someone says yes.
Kuhn was just back from an interview with White House photographer Eric Draper, a meeting he sought for more than two years. He was escorted beyond the White House's front gates into the West Wing and given 19 minutes for a Q&A before the photographer had to run out to meet President Bush's landing plane.
Tops on the list of those he'd most like to interview right now – no surprise here – is Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely front-runner for the Democratic presidential ticket.
This summer Kuhn will work under CBS News' creative director Bob Peterson. The previous summer he interned at NBC News.
Kuhn has always had to formally apply to be considered for these plum positions, although working the contacts he has made in the field have surely helped. That, and being in the right place at the right time.
"You just have to be persistent, to say, 'I want to work for you, I want to do this,'" Kuhn says.
Last summer at NBC, he approached Lisa Daniels, one of the network's news correspondents, about coming on his radio show the following fall.
Impressed with the "incredibly mature" and energetic young man racing through the NBC hallways, she agreed.
Daniels, an Ardsley High School graduate now living in Manhattan, also attended Hamilton College.
She described Kuhn's on-air style as very conversational – "which is one of the best things about being an interviewer," Daniels added.
"Anyone who knows him and has watched him thinks he'll have a career in this business," Daniels said. "He's curious, friendly, smart, a good listener."
If he had his pick of jobs Kuhn would love to be a television news anchor, which he says is "the combination of everything I love – words, sound, images – and when done well, it's just awesome!"
And while he won't make any predictions on the upcoming 2008 presidential race, Kuhn guarantees it will be an exciting one to watch. He'll be right there on the sidelines, taking it all in.
To see what Kuhn thinks, just check out his website, his blog, his radio show, his – well, you get the point.
