Recipe for Comedic Success

Alexander Trowbridge ’09, producer of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumnus, attributes his journey to success to his experiences at Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism.

As a sophomore at Carolina, Trowbridge’s interests in entertainment, writing and news reporting lured him to Carroll Hall, the heart of the MJ-school. “You’re in a beautiful building right in the center of campus,” he said. “You can tell that attention is being paid to [media and journalism], and there is a recipe for success that has been worked out. It’s evolving, but it has worked for others.”

Looking back on his Carolina experience, Trowbridge said he took the one-man-band skills he learned at the UNC School of Media and Journalism and The Daily Tar Heel and used them to his advantage.

“I hoped the MJ-school would prepare me for a career,” says Trowbridge. “And that’s exactly what it did.”

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University has recently announced its new class of Nieman Fellows. Among them: Trowbridge, who will use his two semesters at Harvard to study the intersection between comedy and journalism.

Read the complete Carolina Story from the School of Media and Journalism…

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