UMass Amherst Alumni Association
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Alumni Profile - Vinnie Malhotra '97
It’s late afternoon, only hours away from airtime, when a breaking story comes into ABC News in New York City. Phones are ringing throughout the newsroom as reporters race off to the airport with instructions in hand. Vinnie Malhotra ’97, executive producer of ABC News’ weekend news content, soaks it all in while reviewing the program’s line-up and discussing the needed changes with the news anchor, Charlie Gibson. “That’s when the adrenaline rush of covering breaking news hits you,” says Malhotra. “It just never gets old. I can still remember answering phones as a desk assistant and just watching, in awe of the process.”
Malhotra got his first taste of the network news industry in 1996 while still a communications and political science major at UMass Amherst. He took a chance and sent his resume to a producer for ABC News. The move paid off when he landed an internship in New York City with an affiliate news service called ABC NewsOne that gathers and feeds regional, national, and international news material to ABC affiliates around the country. “There were some really big news stories that summer—the bombing of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana—and there I was walking past Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, and Barbara Walters in the hallways of ABC News,” he recalls. “It made a big impression on me.”
During his senior year, Malhotra gave up spring and winter breaks to return to ABC News on a freelance basis doing whatever was needed. After graduation he took a job as a desk assistant in the Washington DC bureau during the President Clinton /Monica Lewinsky scandal. He was sent out into the field with a camera crew and was assigned to track Monica Lewinsky’s every move. “I basically stalked people for a period of time, but I learned the basics of reporting—from tracking, to keeping notes, to knowing who said what, when, and where.”
After some time in the Capitol, Malhotra returned to New York City to work for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. He was working on the coverage of terrorism issues when 9/11 happened. “I worked for two days non-stop after 9/11 and then went directly to Pakistan to a staging area for all international press waiting to get into Afghanistan to see what was really happening there,” he said. “I packed for two weeks and stayed for four months!”
With the Taliban still in control of post 9/11 Aftghanistan, Malhotra came across refugees crossing the border into Pakistan. He spoke with them at length and learned incredible details of their lives and the conditions they were fleeing from. “I remember calling back to New York on a satellite phone and speaking with Peter Jennings and the executive producer of World News Tonight. I described the scene inside Afghanistan as told through the refugees that were coming across the border. That night, the lead story included my reporting and it really hit me like a ton of bricks how great a responsibility I had out there. I was the eyes and ears for millions of Americans watching this program every night that wanted to know what was happening. I truly began to get a sense of what it was like to be an international journalist and the responsibility that goes with it,” he said.
For the next six years, Malhotra was sent to war zones around the world for ABC News. He went from Afghanistan, to Haiti, to Columbia, to the Gaza Strip, to the West Bank. During this time he worked very closely with his mentor Peter Jennings, until his unexpected death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer. “In a lot of ways Peter made the world small. He just knew something about everything and everyone, and what he didn’t know, he wanted to learn about. I always had trouble keeping up with him because his mind moved at such a fast pace and there was never enough time in the day to report all the stories that he was interested in,” said Malhotra. “He is an American icon and his legacy lives on in his work and in all the people he touched over the years.”
Eventually the Iraq War began and Malhotra made eight trips to the war zone until his ill-fated trip with World News Tonight anchor Bob Woodruff in January 2006. Malhotra, Woodroff, and cameraman Doug Vogt were traveling in a convoy that was hit by a roadside bomb. Malhotra sustained no injuries, but Woodroff and Vogt were seriously wounded. “There was a very violent bang and it tipped the whole tank. I looked up and saw Bob crumble into the tank covered in blood and my initial reaction was that he was dead,” said Malhotra. “The only thing to do at that moment was to put my hand over the bleeding on his neck and wait until the hatch opened and help arrived.” Help did arrive in time, and Malhotra and his colleagues returned to the U.S. where Woodroff and Vogt continued to receive medical attention and recover from their serious injuries.
Right around that same time, Malhotra became aware of the plight of fellow UMass Amherst graduate and journalist Jill Carroll ’99. Carol, a reporter in Iraq for the Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped and held for three months before her ultimate release in March 2006. The incident changed the sense of immunity that many journalists had, and there was a new understanding of the exceptional dangers they faced covering conflicts overseas, most specifically in Iraq. “It’s hard for me to even express just how violent that place really is,” said Malhotra. “You smell it in the air … the anger and violence is a combustible mix that makes it incredibly dangerous.”
Shortly after his return from Iraq, Malhotra was made the executive producer of the weekend news content. In his ten years in the industry, he has been a part of some of the major news stories to hit the airways and witnessed major changes in how news is disseminated. Today’s audience looks not only to the traditional mediums of newspapers and network television, but also to the Internet, cable outlets, blogs and many other mediums for sharing news and information. Journalism has also had to evolve. “Journalists going out into the field have to wear many more hats,” he says. Here at ABC News, we’ve just created a whole new crop of what we’re calling ‘digital reporters’. In addition to working with them on writing skills and on-air presence, they’ve been trained on D.V. cameras and in laptop editing. They are a complete package, capable of working on the latest platforms for reporting and dispensing news.”
Looking back on his four years at UMass Amherst, Malhotra describes it as a wonderful time of learning, self-awareness, and coming-of-age. “I think UMass Amherst helped me to figure out who I am and what I really like doing; and if you can figure that out, there’s no stopping you. You’ve got to hit the ground running as fast as you can and you can’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Eventually, something breaks and you find what it is that you really love; and when that happens, let me tell you, it is gold!”
By Elena Lamontagne
12/2/07
