Alum
Terry Rubin
Co-founder of consulting company Professional Communicators
BA'91 (telecommunications and political science)
“I’m originally from Peoria, Illinois, and then I came to school here at IU. I had a couple friends who went here and were older, so I came and visited them and really fell in love with the campus and the people. I was a political science and telecommunications double major.
So at one point, I had this unfortunate situation sophomore year where a professor of political science pulled me into his office. He said, ‘You're really smart, but you have horrible writing skills. I'm going to send you to my friend over in the journalism department, and I'm going to have you take some journalism classes to tighten up your writing.’
I took one class and really loved the journalism part of it. Then I went to the head of their broadcast journalism department, who said to keep taking journalism courses. And from there, I did summer internships as a local news reporter in my hometown. And right out of college, I got a job in New York City with PBS’s MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour on public television. I started on the bottom rung as a desk assistant doing research, getting coffee, and answering phones. Then I went to work for Time Magazine freelancing for about three months. I then came back to the NewsHour permanently as a production assistant. I ended up working for them for 19 years and became a producer in the end.”
Rubin left the journalism industry after two decades of experience. His career path after leaving PBS led him to work as both an educator and open a consultancy.
“I spent time teaching at a high school. I taught journalism and public speaking, and I coached the high school speech and debate team. After doing that, I left and now I have my own company called Professional Communicators. It's a consultancy where we go into companies and work with their executives or their sales teams on their presentation skills. Sometimes we do media training, where we help them prepare to be on camera for interviews and press conferences, but we also help them with their messaging and storytelling. It takes from journalism where I have to learn about a lot of different industries and companies very quickly. We've been in business now for seven years. But I always tell people, if they're interested in journalism, they should try it.”
Written By Erin Stafford
Photos By Michelle Rezsonya