Alumni

WUSC's 75th Anniversary Alumni Event

Current students and DJs and WUSC alumni gathered on Sept. 16, 2022, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the student radio station. Attendees spent the evening sharing memories, touring the station and reconnecting with old friends. 

Malia Griggs

Garnet & Black

Class of 2012

Malia Griggs started as a features writer for Garnet & Black in 2008. She served as the first online editor for the magazine from 2009 to 2010, when she became editor-in-chief and led a comprehensive redesign of the magazine and website, including adding the style section. After her term as EIC ended in 2011, she stayed on as executive editor until graduating from USC in December of 2011. Her first job after graduation was with Cosmopolitan magazine as an editorial assistant to the editor-in-chief. She moved on to working in production for Comedy Central and is now the director of social media at The Daily Beast.

In her words: “You should get involved with student media for two reasons: No. 1, it actually gives you something to do. You may be a journalism major, or viscomm, but you still need that experience being in a newsroom type of environment. It’s very applicable to what you’ll do with your career, and also, it gives you this body of work. You’ll have a portfolio to take with you. … And then secondly, and this is really cliché, but you will meet some amazing people. Some of my closest friends are from Garnet & Black; a lot of them actually live in New York and I see them all the time. You’re also going to meet people who are in The Daily Gamecock, WUSC, and SGTV, and those connections will be with you hopefully forever. College was just made so much better for me by having that kind of a family.” 

Michael LaForgia

The Daily Gamecock

Class of 2006

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael LaForgia worked for The Daily Gamecock from August 2002 through December 2005. He started as a reporter, became news editor and was editor-in-chief from December of 2004 to December of 2005. He went on to work for the Palm Beach Post; The Tampa Bay Times, where he won two Pulitzers for local reporting in 2014 and 2016; and now The New York Times, where he works as a reporter on the investigations desk.

Jonathan Hillyard

SGTV, The Daily Gamecock, WUSC

Class of 2007

Jonathan Hillyard worked in many roles across student media during his time as a student at USC. He was a staff writer and sports editor for The Daily Gamecock, a sports talk show host for WUSC and the co-founder and producer of Capital City Sports for SGTV. After graduation, he went on to work for the Atlanta Braves’ video department; Gamecock Productions within USC’s Athletics Department, where he served as the associate director; and now Connext Media, a production company based in Atlanta that he founded in 2017.

In his words: “I would encourage [students] to be involved in as many different organizations in Student Media as you can. If you want to be a reporter, the odds are, in this day and age you’re going to need to know video; you’re going to need to know written print; you’re going to need to know how to produce audio – podcasting is a huge deal these days – so dip your toe in all those things. I think, really, putting all your eggs in one basket right now is a mistake in the media world. You need to at least have some experience in all those things and I think, what better place than Student Media to really have that experience?” 

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