MMC Journalism Alum Gets Front Row Seat for Presidential Election, Transition

Skylar Woodhouse ’21

For Woodhouse, that meant long hours waiting with fellow reporters in a van on the grounds of the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory, shuffling over to the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters, where Harris thanked phone bank volunteers, and, by the next day, heading to Howard University where Harris delivered her concession speech.

Though eventful, those hours were much more subdued than people might expect, Woodhouse said. Still, she felt the weight of watching history unfold. “On Election Day, you think you’ll be running around with your head cut off … but when you’re in a press pool for the president or whoever, you spend a lot of time waiting around on the most powerful people in the world,” she said. “It was still an incredible opportunity, and I get to say that on election night, I was sitting outside the vice president’s house as history was in the making.” Woodhouse is currently in Palm Beach, Florida, covering President-elect Donald Trump’s transition.

However voters and historians remember Election Day 2024, it will be a moment of personal significance for Woodhouse, marking the first time she’s covered a high-stakes presidential election as a full-time, on-the-ground reporter—though she’s had some practice. In her last semester at MMC, she interned for The Rachel Maddow Show, helping, she said, cover the 2020 presidential race remotely from her “shoebox New York City apartment.”

The following year, she was hired at Bloomberg News as a municipal finance reporter, covering, among other things, public finance, transportation, and New York City and New Jersey politics. She joined the staff just in time to report on New York’s 2021 mayoral race, notable as the city’s first to use ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank up to five candidates in order of preference. “That was a crazy race—I was crisscrossing New York City because there were so many candidates, so many things happening,” she recalled. “But it was my first real taste of being a reporter and covering something for myself.” After that, she covered New Jersey’s gubernatorial race.

A native of Chesapeake, Virginia, Woodhouse had wanted to go into journalism since high school, where she wrote for the school paper, having grown up with parents who were avid news consumers and a relative who often made headlines. Her grandfather, William E. Ward, was Chesapeake’s first African American mayor and the city’s longest-serving mayor.

“My parents are news junkies, particularly my dad—he’s going to always have the 6:30 news on,” she said. “My family was very immersed in what’s happening in the world and would always have in-depth conversations around politics.” 

Initially, Woodhouse planned to pursue fashion journalism and minored in fashion at MMC. “I thought, ‘I’m going to work at Vogue, that’s what’s happening,’” she said. However, the College’s New York City seminar, designed to help first-year students acclimate to the city, would change her trajectory. “My class went to newsrooms around New York City—the Associated Press, CNN. We even went to Bloomberg, which was a full-circle moment for me. And I thought, ‘Oh, wait a second. I want to go into this big hard news world…I like the thrill and rush that hard news and breaking news provide. There’s so much going on in the world.”

She swapped her fashion minor for a minor in International Studies and double majored in Digital Journalism and Cinema, Television, and Emerging Media. Most importantly, she found that no matter what side of journalism she chose, the MMC community would help her along her career path.

Woodhouse credits MMC’s alumni network with helping her get a foot in the door; she scored her first news internships with the help of Lorenza Brascia Ingram ’13, an award-winning news and documentary producer with whom she remains friends to this day. “I was that student who, if we had a guest speaker who was an alum or literally anyone come, I would find a way to connect with them,” Woodhouse said. “And I went to all of the Marymount alumni events or career fairs.”

Moreover, she said guidance from Communication and Media Arts professors, including Corey Liberman, Ph.D., and Tatiana Serafin, coordinator of the College’s Journalism program, as well as hands-on Journalism courses that would send her into all corners of the city to report stories, helped her get off to a good start.

“It prepares you a lot for journalism,” she said. “We were always going out into the real world—we didn’t just sit in a classroom.”

Woodhouse said she was the quintessential Southern girl who dreamed of studying in NYC but was drawn to MMC after learning about the College from friends in her dance classes. “I went to a small private high school, and that was the sort of setting I wanted in college,” she said. “Marymount provided me with what I was looking for. It was a fabulous experience, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

As an alum, she’s made an effort to pay forward the help she received, speaking in October to Journalism students in the College’s Public Affairs and Political Reporting seminar about her career.

But she offers the same advice to all students, regardless of major: “Take advantage of everything the city has to offer and also what Marymount has to offer,” she said, noting that she had written for the student newspaper, been a peer leader, and belonged to the Black & Latinx Student Association. “Get to know your professors and classmates because they’ll become your network, and take advantage of literally everything around you. That’s really my only advice—use those resources.”

Published: November 25, 2024