Wheaton News

She’ll study journalism in Denmark and the Czech Republic

Caroline Chaffiotte ’22 will embark on the trip of a lifetime this September after being accepted into the prestigious and highly competitive Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters program.

The Brookline, Massachusetts, resident, who majored in English and Film and New Media Studies at Wheaton College, will study “Journalism, Media, and Globalisation” in both Denmark and the Czech Republic.

The international study initiative, administered by the European Commission, offers scholarships to outstanding students from around the world to pursue degrees across multiple countries and universities.

Chaffiotte, who is already an Emmy-award winning journalist at WHDH 7News, will study in Aarhus, Denmark, followed by Prague — where she also studied abroad while at Wheaton.

“I’m hoping that with the skills that I get there, I become a stronger reporter and have more facets to the way that I interact with the world as a journalist,” Chaffiotte said. “You try to add as many skills, building blocks and perspectives to yourself and to your portfolio, as possible, and I’m hoping that with the experience over there, I’ll be able to at least take a more global perspective on what’s going on, including what’s happening in the United States.”

As an assignment editor at WHDH, much of her day-to-day work revolves around the office, but Chaffiotte said she craves getting out into the field more to put her stamp on stories and help “bring them to life.” She hopes to be able to receive her work visa and stay in Europe full-time as a field producer for an international platform.

From web-designing courses to combing through different mediums, Chaffiotte credited many of Wheaton’s classes for giving her the skills needed to succeed in broadcast journalism.

“Wheaton gave me the basic building blocks on how to create, not just a well-constructed narrative, but a compelling narrative, something that transcends just one medium,” she said.

Becoming a journalist was a chance encounter for Chaffiotte. WHDH needed production assistants. She needed a job. The rest is history.

“I fell in love with how exciting it can be,” she said. “It’s really satisfying to see the information I collect immediately be put on television, especially during a breaking news scenario. There’s just this kind of thrill and high. It’s very stressful, but there’s also this giddiness that comes out. I like being able to do something on this level that is not just interesting to me, but also beneficial to people.”

Chaffiotte didn’t minor in Journalism Studies at Wheaton, but she commended the college’s interdisciplinary curriculum for preparing its students to be flexible for any line of work, regardless of what they study.

“It’s that skill set we get from Wheaton, from that liberal arts education, of being able to read, write, communicate, translate, analyze,” she said. “All of those skills are inherent to many jobs, but specifically journalism. It just kind of primes you for a better position and a better trajectory for your career.

“If I didn’t have the education that I have, I don’t think I’d be as successful in presenting myself, presenting my work or navigating the newsroom.”

—By Scott Enman ’15