This Is the Hoo Who Gives You the News

“It’s been an incredible experience to get to talk to Americans with different backgrounds, to learn how they feel and view this election,” she said. “You have the most interesting days where you start in Tucson, drive two hours to the U.S.-Mexico border and be close enough to Mexico that you can see Mexican authorities on the other side, and then drive back to Tucson so that you can get on a plane to Las Vegas. And then you end up in La Crosse, and who knows where I’ll be next week. What other job on the planet can you do something like that?”

Now a reporter for a national television network, covering the presidential campaign, Rinaldi got her start in the business as a double major in media studies and foreign affairs. (Contributed photo)

Rinaldi is living a childhood dream. Her UVA education helped make it possible. A double major in media studies and foreign affairs, she looked for every opportunity to be a part of journalism.

“I just did everything I could being in Charlottesville,” Rinaldi said. “I worked for the Cavalier Daily and WUVA. There were always big news stories happening there. When I was a student, Unite the Right happened. I had all these opportunities to cover major stories.”

She also volunteered at the local Charlottesville NPR affiliate and in her fourth year interned at “Face the Nation.”

“So, it’s my fourth year. It’s the last semester. Everyone’s having fun and having a great time and I’m driving from Charlottesville to D.C. on the weekends,” she laughed. “I would give up my Friday, Saturday and Sunday to intern at ‘Face the Nation’ because that’s how badly I wanted it.”

From cornfields to convention floors, the Class of 2019 graduate is covering campaign events and the issues and developments surrounding the 2024 presidential election. (CBS News photo)

Rinaldi credits two professors of practice in the Department of Media Studies, Anna Katherine Clay and retired CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews  for giving her the tools to ply her trade.

“I became very close to (Clay) after taking her sports journalism class, and Wyatt Andrews taught a basic multimedia reporting class that was like a six-month boot camp to becoming a campaign reporter,” she said. “And then I think, too, the UVA connection cannot be understated. I tell people I’m a Wahoo, and it has a different gravity to it.”

While she had a solid foundation from her time at UVA, when Rinaldi found herself at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, she learned that being a news reporter also involves relying on instinct, keeping your cool and doing the job regardless of what’s going on around you.

“I wasn’t supposed to be there. I had another colleague who was there, but we thought there was going to be a vice presidential announcement, and I was like, ‘I’ll be damned if I’ve been on the road for three weeks waiting for this announcement and I’m not there,’” she said.

Standing on the press risers with other members of the media, Rinaldi heard what she first thought was a firecracker. She quickly discovered it as the pop-pop-pop of gunshots and dove for cover with others.

 

 

 

 

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“I saw Trump go down, and I knew something just happened,” she said noting that it took a second to process what was going on. “And then it was scary because we could hear people screaming. Then, we get up and we hear that crowd roar and see him throwing that first up in the air. I just pulled out my phone and started reporting.

Being up front and close to candidates and politicians is important to both understand and report on campaign issues, says Rinaldi, third from left. She says reporters who work the campaign trail together often develop a sense of camaraderie. (CBS News photo)

“We went from Butler straight to the Republican National Convention. We didn’t sleep all night. We stayed up, we worked, we reported from the scene and then flew out, went to Milwaukee.”

Rinaldi admits there is some danger in her job, but being away from friends and family is the most difficult part.

“You do make some personal sacrifices. I have missed out on a lot of things with family and friends over the last year and a half doing this job, and I will miss out on more in the coming weeks as we head into this election,” she said.

“But I love this job. What’s really put the hook in me is that no day is the same,” she said. “I’ll never be able to do a desk job. I have one down day, and I’m like, ‘All right, let’s go.’ What’s the next mission? What’s the next thing? At 27, I feel like I have endless possibilities.”