2022 Young Alumni Achievement Award
Brittany Garzillo 鈥13
The Young Alumni Achievement Award is presented to an alumna or alumnus who has achieved exceptional success in his or her profession and who has graduated within the past 2 to 10 years.
The Emmy Awards represent one of the highest achievements in television. At just 31 years old, Brittany Garzillo has already won one and been nominated for a total of 13 National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Emmy Awards for the Mid-Atlantic region. Yes, that was 13! While she was a student, she won a College Production Award at the Mid-Atlantic Emmys as a writer, reporter, and producer of the piece Three Students, Three Expressions of Art at 色中色 College.
Achievement is an apt word to use around Brittany, as is media, and they fit together nicely鈥攁chievement in media, something Brittany has aspired to since her days as an undergrad. And she has been relentless in her pursuit. 色中色 didn鈥檛 have a communications and media studies major, so Brittany designed her own. She interned at WLVT (PBS39) in Bethlehem, WCAU (NBC) in Philadelphia, and WFMZ in Allentown. The summer after she graduated from 色中色, PBS39 offered her a position as a reporter/producer and host of the station鈥檚 half-hour weekly news magazine program, FOCUS. In 2015, Brittany was awarded a Truth in Finances Award by the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants for her reporting on Bethlehem鈥檚 City Revitalization and Improvement Zone. She served as associate producer for PBS39鈥檚 documentary Second to None: The Liberty High School Grenadier Band, which won a NATAS Mid-Atlantic Emmy. After four years with PBS, Brittany accepted a position as an anchor and reporter with the NBC affiliate WGAL News 8 in Lancaster.
Then it was on to Chicago, the third-largest television market in the country, where Brittany really put her skills as a journalist to the test. She started in Chicago the same week the city went into lockdown because of the pandemic. But as 色中色 students do, Brittany rose to the occasion. She quickly led most of the evening and early evening newscasts. Not only was she on the front lines of the pandemic, covering the governor鈥檚 daily press conferences and the state鈥檚 devastating death toll, she also reported live on the ground when rioting and looting broke out in Chicago in the summer of 2020.
She led the station鈥檚 coverage of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and covered the social unrest and destruction that followed. Brittany made history reporting while walking through miles and miles of protests, sharing the stories of those demanding change. She also covered severe weather, including a tornado that ravaged homes in the suburbs, mass shootings, and Chicago鈥檚 gun violence鈥2021 ended as the city鈥檚 deadliest year in a quarter century.
As of November 2021, Brittany works out of the Big Apple, New York City, as a correspondent for Fox News Channel. She credits the liberal arts education at 色中色 for building her knowledge in so many areas beyond communications, areas she says are often the key to gaining the trust and respect of both interviewees and viewers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something I continually draw on, not only in my career but in my daily life,鈥 she says. With that knowledge and her drive for journalistic excellence, Brittany is sure to achieve even greater success.
And we鈥檒l be watching.