She’s at the late-night fire, the charity event, the Capitol, and the committee meeting. Where news happens, she’s there with a camera and mic, ready to give Connecticut its nightly news at 10.
Jennifer Lahmers, 23, is new to Hartford but not to news. A native of Dover, Ohio, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University in 2006.
Her early experiences as an intern at the Times-Reporter in New Philadelphia, Ohio, and at WOUB Radio and Television in Athens, Ohio, affirmed her desire to pursue journalism.
“I had written a story about a boy with cerebral palsy who needed an expensive experimental procedure to walk,” said Lahmers. “After the story came out, donations were collected throughout town and within six months, he could walk again. I thought, ‘I can do something with this, can affect people’s lives and make changes.’”
Lahmers most recently arrived from Jackson, Tenn., where she worked as a weekend news anchor and weekday news reporter for WBBJ-TV.
“As an anchor for the morning show, it’s a schedule only the people that have done it can identify with,” she said. “Now by working with one news cast, I can better polish stories and get a better rounded take on issues and breaking news.”
“This city is stepping it up a notch for me,” she said.
She applied to the job in Hartford because, as she put it, “I never want to become complacent in where I am…I feel like if I throw myself actively into situations it makes me try that much harder to go for stories. I had never been to New England before.”
Lahmers brings experience that came with an unexpected story while she was solo anchoring and producing at a Cars for Kids parade in Selmer, Tenn. “A drag racer careened into the crowd and killed six people,” Lahmers said. “I had to call in crews and reporters and go live for the story right there.”
Lahmers has stepped into a role that requires making split-second decisions with breaking news. “You develop news judgment on the fly…the sign of a good reporter is how you recover when something goes wrong and how you roll with the punches,” she said.
Emily Boisvert is a Hartford Business Journal staff writer.
