Carrie Moniot spent her days as a student at Point Park working to try and make it in in the media industry. 40 years later, she is bringing her expertise as an Emmy award-winning producer and back to Point Park media students with similar aspirations. 

Moniot’s journey to being a successful media professional was far from being simple. When Moniot was an undergraduate student at Point Park in the late 1970s, she worked some tough hours. 

“So I was taking classes in the morning. And then I would go home and sleep for about four hours and then go to work at KQV Radio at midnight, work from midnight until 8 a.m., get off work at eight, go drink like some tea or some coffee, get all juiced up for classes and then I would attend classes until early in the afternoon,” Moniot said. “Honestly, I don’t even remember how or when I slept, but it was a great foot in the door. And the fact that I was actually at Point Park, and I could just walk over to work from Point Park, that was perfect. So it was great location, and it was a great place to go to school.” 

Moniot graduated from Point Park in 1980 and would go on to have an extensive career with leading local broadcast and radio outlets, working for KDKA Radio, KDKA TV and WPXI TV at different points in a number of capacities starting in the 1980s through the mid 2000s. 

In 2004, she won a Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy Award in the Public Affairs Program/One-Time Only Special category for producing a WPXI special. 

Since 2009, Moniot has worked as a media freelancer in the Pittsburgh area and served on the adjunct faculty for Point Park from 2009 to 2011 and Robert Morris University from 2011 to 2019. She now helps her husband and movie critic, Drew Moniot, run his website and social media platforms for Drew’s Reviews. 

Moniot has also returned to Point Park for a third time and is currently teaching Multi-Camera Video Production, BPMM 216, this semester.  

“It’s very hands on, which is what I liked about it. In the first few weeks we go over everything that students are going to need to know to do the various technical aspects of producing a newscast, a news briefing or a talk show,” Moniot said. “And then the last 10 weeks of the classes, it’s all hands on. We rotate crews, so everybody gets a chance to interact and to the technical director to run audio to run camera or direct, we have talent there, and we just kind of keep rotating. So, that’s what I really liked about the classes, the fact that it’s actually like putting on a television show every day.” 

Interacting with the students and guiding them on how to be successful media professionals is the favorite part of her role here at Point Park. 

“I really like mentoring students. I’ve always kind of been known to be the type of person that would be able to do that,” she said. “I had many mentors over my media career, and I’d like to be able to take that into the classroom and help students find their first internship or help them if they’re looking for a freelance position or a part-time job. If I find out about something, I’ll share that information. But I just love being able to share knowledge with younger people who are going to be the next generation of media professionals. It’s such a valiant profession to me that you want to properly train people to kind of carry the gauntlet from here and continue our profession because it is such an important profession to be in.”