Friday, March 14, 2008
by: Isabel Bauer

By the time Jim Donovan graduated from Seton Hall with a bachelor’s degree in communication he already had a job offer from WWOR-TV’s Channel 9. Since then, he has worked in television news for more than 20 years and is currently the consumer reporter for CBS 3 Eyewitness News in Philadelphia. We caught up with the Emmy Award-winning reporter to talk about his past and present roles.

Apprentice in the Early Days: Making contacts while at Seton Hall opened doors for Donovan in the competitive field of broadcasting. He was able to land an internship at Channel 9 during his last semester. “On my first day I covered the return of the Giants to New York following their Superbowl XXI win,” he says. Donovan interned in the days before personal computers and high-definition television. “We used noisy, large-print typewriters and ripped wire copy off the Associated Press wire machines,” he says. “The news photographers shot footage on ¾ inch-video tape that was the size of small textbooks.” “Seton Hall’s communication department carried a lot of weight with recruiters,” he says, and when his internship ended, Donovan accepted an entry-level position at Channel 9 as a production assistant.

Aviation Expert by Default: Early in his career, Donovan supplemented his income by working first for People Express Airlines as a customer service representative and later as a flight attendant for Continental Airlines. His flexible schedule allowed him to work around his news shifts. “I would show up to Channel 9 in my airline uniform, dragging my crew luggage behind me.” His airline background made him the de facto aviation expert at Channel 9, which was especially helpful because there were a number of major airplane crashes in the New York area and Donovan “was able to assist the news team with their comprehensive breaking news coverage.” 

Emmy Winner: Donovan has won two Emmy awards and received nine additional nominations. The first Emmy was awarded for his research for a report on airplane crash survival, which focused on increasing the odds of walking away from a survivable crash. His second Emmy recognized his work as a consumer advocate. 

Consumer Advocate: While working on Steals & Deals at CNBC, Donovan developed a passion for consumer news. He first started as an investigative producer and eventually made the transition to on-air consumer reporter and became one of the youngest reporters in the New York market. His work aired locally and nationally on CNBC and NBC’s Today show. “I enjoy consumer reporting because at the end of the day, there is usually some useful information that the viewer can take away from my stories,” he says. As a reporter he has exposed scams ranging from large-scale car leasing fraud in northern New Jersey to a bogus national matchmaking service in Florida.

Robin Hood — the Legal Way: While working at a North Carolina station he covered what he thought was a simple story about unclaimed funds. The overwhelming response to his story led to a weekly series about the topic. Within a year, Donovan and his team helped return $1.3 million to people owed money by the state of North Carolina and didn’t know it. The amount recovered set a national record for money returned to viewers by a TV station.

At his current position at CBS 3 Eyewitness News in Philadelphia, he organized a two day donation drive during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Viewers donated more than $1 million to assist victims along the Gulf Coast. The donations set another national record for a TV station, this time for fundraising. “I’ve learned over the years how to harness the immediacy of TV news and use it to assist the disadvantaged,” Donovan says.

Donovan - Cape Horn, South America

World Traveler: Donovan’s other passion is traveling the world. Taking four or five trips a year, he has visited 58 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. His favorite destinations are Ireland, Paris and Chile. Donovan prefers to travel the world on a cruise ship because “it allows me to visit multiple cities while on one vacation — I can go back to the places that I enjoyed later for a longer period of time,” he says. Donovan just returned from a two-week trip around South America and is already planning his next big trip: a cruise exploring Southeast Asia. 

Tour Guide: Intrigued by the large number of public murals around Philadelphia, where he moved to join CBS 3 Eyewitness News, Donovan was surprised to find that Philadelphia has 2,700 public murals, more than any other city in the world. That fact alone inspired him to volunteer as a docent for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, where he gives trolley tours to tourists and art lovers alike.

As to how his time at Seton Hall impacted him, he says, “the fact that I had a Seton Hall degree under my belt, gave me a foot up on the competition.”

For more information please contact:
Alumni Relations
(800) 992-4723
alumni@shu.edu