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James Madison University - Madison Magazine - Summer 2009 - Index

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W
hen you
have a
Wikipedia
page, you
kind of know you’ve arrived,
but Lindsay Czarniak (’00),
sports anchor for WRC-TV,
the local NBC television
affiliate in Washington, D.C.,
takes it all in stride.
“How funny is that?”
Czarniak says. “But I feel
like everybody has a wiki
page now.”
Well, everybody who’s
covered the Olympic games
twice, serves as co-host of
The George Michael Sports
Machine and has a weekly
gig on the Mike O’Meara
Show does.
This Duke knows her
sports. Her father, Chet, who
has been with USA Today for more than two decades, was a sports
reporter and editor for 16 years. He is now network managing editor
of USA Today and USA Today online. “Both of my parents had a
tremendous influence on me,” Czarniak says. “My mom [Terri] was a
teacher and is now a principal at an Alexandria elementary school.”
Czarniak grew up attending Olympic Games and other sporting
events with her father, and she got some hands-on instruction as
well. “I remember Dad editing my papers, and I just wanted to cry,”
she says. “He would rip them apart. But he taught me that having
high standards and ethics in this business is key.”
The “Czarniak School of Journalism” worked. “Lindsay obviously
had a passion for the business,” says Marilou Moore Johnson (’80),
associate dean for the JMU College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Johnson taught Czarniak in a broadcast journalism class. “It’s a lot of
work to put together video reports, package the news, anchor and
produce a newscast, and that burns some students out quickly, but it
didn’t daunt Lindsay. She had an enthusiasm for it,” says Johnson.
Czarniak’s first job out of college was at CNN in Atlanta. “I absolutely
had stars in my eyes,” she says. “I was just in awe.”
After reporting and anchor stints at various television stations
in the Jacksonville, Fla., area, Czarniak was covering a story on
This Duke knows her sports
By Sande Snead (’82)
Lindsay Czarniak (’00) and
her father, Chet, share a
trip to the Great Wall during
Lindsay’s 2008 coverage
of the Olympic Games in
Beijing, China.
MLB player Carlos Delgado
in January 2005, when he
signed a four-year contract
worth a reported $52 million
with the Florida Marlins. It
was then that she got a phone
call from George Michael. “I
thought he was calling me to
get some footage of Delgado,
but instead he said, ‘I want to
see what we can do to get you
to come to D.C.’”
Later that year, Czarniak
returned to D.C. and joined
NBC4, acting as sports
anchor and reporter for
George Michael. She officially
became the co-host of
The George Michael Sports
Machine in September 2006.
In her first major assignment
as a reporter, Czarniak traveled
to Turin, Italy, to relay
coverage of the 2006 Winter
Olympics for NBC Sports.
In August 2008, she
returned to the Olympic
arena, covering the Beijing
Games as part of NBC’s
broadcast team. Her chief responsibility was a daily program about
gymnastics for the Oxygen network. “Covering the Olympics was a
great experience, and I got to immerse myself in Chinese culture,”
Czarniak says.
Czarniak’s father is most proud that she has made a respected
name for herself in the business. “When I hear from my peers that
Lindsay does her homework and that she is well prepared — that’s
the best you can ask of anybody.”
Czarniak’s love of sports has passed the capital beltway to super
speedways. She served as a pit reporter for NASCAR’s former
Busch Series races at the Martinsville Speedway and an IRP Busch
race. She doesn’t see any barriers to women in sports news these
days. “While women sports reporters may still be a minority statswise,
I did an interview in the locker room the other day, and there
were four women with microphones right in front,” she says. M
SUMMER 2009
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