Keeping up with Capitol Hill can be challenging, but Cronkite School alum Lisa Ruhl is making political news binge-worthy. As senior manager of streaming at The Hill, Ruhl leads video teams that deliver fast-paced coverage across platforms like Roku, Samsung and Amazon Fire.
After earning her master’s degree in mass communication, she climbed the ladder to newsroom leader. She shared with us how her path proves that big leaps and bold moves can lead to serious success.
Note: The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Question: What are your responsibilities as the senior manager of streaming?
Answer: I’m responsible for taking all of the content that the video team produces and putting together content to air on all of our streaming platforms. That includes our original programming that we tape in the studio, programming from Nexstar (our parent company), and in situations like election night where we are live, it includes programming all the live content and making sure that all goes smoothly.
I still run the team of video editors, which I was previously the executive producer for, so I am still their manager, managing their everyday tasks. They make content like YouTube shorts, and some of our social video and work with some of our print reporters to create content to match their print stories. And then I’ve got a producer who works exclusively on our FAST (free, ad-supported television) channel.
I do a lot of fun administrative stuff because I’m in management now, checking in with some of our platform partners, sending out promotions for things we are working on, and fielding complaints from people for things that haven’t been working. It’s a busy day. A lot of what I do is keep a good relationship with the reporters in the newsroom, because we use them for a lot of our content.
Q: What’s your favorite part of your job?
A: I really like being a manager. I just really like my team, and most of them have been with me for a while. I’ve been at The Hill for almost eight years now, and there’s one person on my team who’s been there for seven years, and a couple have been there for four years. I think that I’m a really good manager, I build good relationships. And, just watching this fast channel expand over the past two years has been really rewarding because I just kind of fell into this new job because of proximity.
One day our boss was like, “We’re starting this. Lisa, do you know how to make an Excel spreadsheet? Can you pick out good content?” And it has just spiraled from there, and I’ve really taken ownership of it. So I would say my favorite parts are managing my team of people that I really like and trying something new and creating this fast channel from scratch.
Q: What advice do you have for students who dream of covering politics?
A: Just come to D.C. and do it. When I graduated, I lingered around Phoenix for a couple of months. The teacher I was a teaching assistant for reminded me that I wanted to go to D.C., and he was like, “Why don’t you just go?”
I eventually found a job at Discovery Studios working as a production assistant on a random show. And I really missed being a newsroom, so then I found a newsroom job, and it led me to where I am now.
I would say: If you want to do it, just go, just do it, just get to the place where you want to be. It’s so much easier to find jobs when you’re there.
Q: What can political journalists do to ensure fair coverage?
A: Do your research on where you’re applying for jobs. I think it’s easy to find out if an organization has a slant one way or another, and talk to the people who work there and see what it’s like.
At The Hill, honestly, I wouldn’t be able to guess one way or another which way my colleagues here were voting, and I think that’s an incredible. Do your research on where you’re applying and where you want to work, and decide if you’re OK with working somewhere where you could potentially be branded one way or another for working there.
As a hiring manager, I look at people’s resumes and where they’ve worked, and if it’s a string of places in a row with one particular slant, I think you can glean something from that. Obviously, when you’re getting started you’ll take a job wherever you just want to get your foot in the door; I definitely don’t hold that against someone.
Once you’re in the newsroom, don’t talk about politics if you don’t want to talk about politics. It’s shockingly easy.