Where Are They Now? Kate Lunger - George Washington University - Official Athletic Site

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Behind the scenes, months and even years of preparation go into CNN's coverage of the world's biggest events like a Presidential election, global summit or royal wedding.
 
As the 24-hour news network's Vice President of Special Events, Kate (Steinhilber) Lunger directs a team covering history, responsible for the details that stretch well beyond what ends up on TV. "Everything from trash cans to transmission," she's fond of saying.
 
Even so, there's only so much that Lunger can control once the broadcast goes live.
 
Much has changed about television production over three decades in the industry, but the GW women's soccer alumna still finds satisfaction in a job not for the faint of heart.
 
"We joke that it's organizing the chaos," said Lunger, who represented the Buff and Blue from 1985-88.
 
Leading production planning and execution of CNN's most high-profile coverage, Lunger has been part of detailing one landmark moment after another. Her work on both special-event programming and breaking news has earned consistent praise, garnering the network a collection of Emmy, Peabody and Murrow awards.
 
Since 2009, the Massachusetts native has helmed the planning of CNN's presidential campaign coverage, including dozens of network-hosted town halls and debates, and her duties reporting on presidential foreign travel have taken her around the globe.
 
Now facing a new challenge covering an unprecedented election amid a global pandemic, Lunger believes her soccer background prepared her for this path, teaching adaptability and teamwork, not to mention the drive to excel in a competitive field.
 
"I'm just so grateful for my experience playing sports that I'm able to apply it later in life without even thinking about it," Lunger said. "Someone picks up the phone and calls you and says 'We need to do a town hall in Pennsylvania in a week.' Just like being in the middle of a game, you've got to figure out where you want to go, who you are going to rely on and make sure everybody understands their role to make things happen."
 
A midfielder with the versatility to help all over the field, Lunger found a home in the nation's capital as a three-year captain for a rising program in the days before Atlantic 10 competition. After compiling a 3-11-1 mark in her rookie season, the Colonials had improved to 13-4-4 by her senior campaign in 1988 under Adrian Glover.
 
More than anything, it was a chance to keep playing the sport that she loved a bit longer.
 
"I'd been playing soccer my whole life, and I wasn't ready to stop," said Lunger, who pointed to a team trip to England as a highlight of her Buff and Blue tenure. "For me, it was all about the sport and the camaraderie and playing the games."
 
Coming to GW, Lunger thought she might study History or Archaeology before finding a fit as a Radio-TV Communications major. The program offered hands-on experience working in a state-of-the-art studio, and upon graduation, she had the know-how to land a series of freelance gigs and the sense of adventure to keep chasing her dream.
 
For Lunger, that meant 21 moves in 10 years at one point. She helped with production on an array of MLS and football games, spent time at a local station in Vail, Colorado and assisted on NBC's Olympics coverage of both the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games. There was a far-away stint with Reuters in Japan and a close-to-home one with Northern Virginia-based Sports News Network.
 
"I really didn't want a job that I was sitting at a desk from 9-to-5," said Lunger, who appreciated mentorship from her GW professor Dr. Joan Thiel during that hectic period. "I didn't know exactly what I wanted, but I knew what I liked. That's what, I think, kept me going to try a lot of different things."
 
Lunger thought she might stick in sports. She certainly never expected to land at a 24-hour news station, but she worked as a technician at CNN based in D.C. for a while in the early 1990s before returning in 1996 as an assignment editor.
 
That experience with both the production and editorial teams made her well-suited for a special events role. She relocated to the network's home base of Atlanta in 1998 and has been there ever since.
 
Lunger's charge is to help CNN find the best way to tell the story of seminal world events. Of course, television – from the technology to the audience – has changed significantly along the way, but she's adapted to be an effective leader in the industry.
 
"My children and my husband will laugh because they do not think I'm a very technical person, especially when it comes to my phone or my computer or any of that stuff, but I understand how to make TV happen, even if it's only by knowing the right people to go to," Lunger said. "I've stopped being the person who understands exactly how everything happens, but I'm the person who understands that things can happen and I just need to get to the right people to be able to pull the whole project together."
 
By now, the moments can start to blur together. There's been so many unforgettable stories to tell and meaningful times behind the scenes.
 
There was an enjoyable trip on Air Force 2 with Vice President Al Gore to cover the fallout after a major ice storm, and a frantic moment with then-Senator Barack Obama during a 2008 debate when she had to push past the secret service to knock on a bathroom door so he didn't miss the return from commercial.
 
When President Donald Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin for a July 2018 summit in Helsinki, Finland, Lunger was there.
 
"I've had a front-row seat to history in a way that I could never have imagined," she said.

Some projects, like the annual CNN Heroes special, are carefully choreographed well before airtime. Yet, when news breaks, Lunger has to be ready.
 
After the September 11^th attacks, she remembers 30 straight days of 12-hour shifts helping on coverage that was eventually awarded with an Emmy.

"It was non-stop," said Lunger, who was also part of award-winning breaking news coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. "Because that's what we had to do to keep everybody on the air and talking people through how to get where they needed to go."
 
These days, the job looks different than ever before. Usually, she's on the road for most of an election year, but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she spent six straight months at home savoring some extra quality time with her husband Matt and college-age sons Zach and Cole.

Rather than being in D.C. on Election Day like usual, she'll be in Atlanta leading coverage there. The network will be going live from D.C., New York and Atlanta in an effort to adhere to social distancing regulations within its production.

Lunger is up for the challenge, ready to adapt on the fly at a moment's notice. Perhaps even leaning on a few lessons from her days in the Buff and Blue.

"Back then, I never ever, ever would've thought this is what I'd be doing," Lunger said. "I feel like I had to fight my way through a little bit, but when I look back, there are a lot of things that set me up for success."

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