Professor Lambeth Hochwald has returned to Hunter College to teach Entertainment Journalism for the second time. The class introduces students to covering all things pop culture, from interviewing actors and musicians to reviewing television shows and concerts.
Hochwald – a graduate of both the undergraduate and masters programs at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism – has been on the entertainment beat for as long as she has been working in journalism, right up from her high school summer internships at local papers. “I’ve always had a penchant for this beat mostly because I’m a really big researcher,” Hochwald says. “I love stumping a celebrity, asking a question that no one else has.”
From Luke Bryan on his tour bus to Elisabeth Moss during a press junket, Hochwald has spent time with a plethora of household names throughout her career. One of her first interviews was with Martha Stewart while writing for the magazine Longevity, prior to the caterer’s transformation into the ubiquitous television personality she’s known as today. “I just had a feeling that she was going to be something huge,” Hochwald recalls.
During Hochwald’s five years as a contributing editor at Parade magazine she conducted interviews with some of the most established celebrities she’s covered. “That’s when things really took off in the sense that I was doing cover stories, I was doing junkets, I was spending the day with Jimmy Fallon,” she says, adding that the “most incredible opportunity” of her career was sitting on set with Robin Roberts at ‘Good Morning, America.’
At Parade, Hochwald was charged not only with interviewing A-Listers, but also with coordinating photoshoots. Through those experiences, she grew well-versed in navigating the star-studded realm of publicists and managers.
For fledgling student journalists, simply being in the presence of one’s favorite idol would be daunting – let alone establishing a comfortable rapport with them while also recalling all their meticulous pre-interview research. But for Hochwald – a self-described “generalist” who, in addition to entertainment, covers health, travel, restaurants, and more – the key to success is to attack a feature about a small bakery in upstate New York with the same gusto and spirit of inquiry as you would a Q&A with Tom Brady. “You always want to find their humanity in some way, shape, or form,” she says. “You don’t want to fan out because you really do have a job to do.”
Hochwald’s goal as a professor is to give her students a taste of the real world of journalism outside of the classroom. In her course at Hunter, Hochwald stresses the importance of research, whether it’s in preparation for an interview with a rock star or for a job at a news outlet. “You will stand out – and I always try to impart this to students – if you shock them by the research that you do,” she says.
Hochwald’s class allows students to learn by interacting with the industry. She has taken students to sit in the live studio audience of “The View” and brought entertainment industry professionals to Hunter College, such as television host Clinton Kelly, for her students to interview and write about just as they would in a professional setting.
Although Hochwald is relatively new to Hunter, having first taught at the school in spring 2024, Hochwald has been a professor at New York University since 2001 and maintains the same passion for teaching as she does for her writing career. “I always want to impart some of the things I’ve learned to the next generation,” she says. “That has evolved over time to really help me stay sharp.”
For Hochwald, the keys to keeping up with the demands of today’s fast-paced media climate are versatility, adaptability, and a voracious curiosity. “In a given week, I don’t necessarily know what I’m going to have up ahead,” she says. “What excites me is when I get a brand new, fresh assignment about something I know nothing about, and I’m able to take it from no knowledge to then a final project in which I’ve found the best experts and talked to the best people.”
In Hochwald’s class, the final project has students invent a new outlet to address a currently unfulfilled niche, and thereby expand their journalistic toolkits. “I know what editors are looking for right now, and I know what is needed on the part of someone who’s just joining the industry,” she says. “You can’t just be a reporter anymore. You really have to understand: who are your readers? Who cares about these stories? What stories are going to do well? That’s fundamental right now, much different than when I graduated. You really have to have the full package.”
Hochwald says students aren’t the only ones who can gain from this experience. “We’re just starting to pitch this semester’s [final projects] and I’m so overwhelmed with the creativity,” she says, noting that it keeps her tapped into what students are thinking about, and what they feel is needed. “Despite how much media there is out there, there’s still room for so much more,” she says.
