Sarah Mucha: the Road from Georgetown through CNN to Axios

Photo obtained from CNN

KATHRYN CHAVEZ: Quick to credit her mentors, it does not take long after chatting with Sarah Mucha to see why people of all levels of success are cheering her on. The Georgetown Class of 2017 graduate with a degree in International Politics, Sarah Mucha, has spent her post-grad years in the newsroom, on the campaign trail, and now in front of the camera.

"When you're young and figuring out what it is that you want in the world, and what you want out of life, every job is an opportunity to learn. 'Okay, I know I like this. I know I love this. This I could probably live without; this is an absolute no for me.' Which is so important to know about what you want to do."

Introduced to journalism while interning in Warsaw, Poland, Mucha found success at Teen Vogue after submitting her first article explaining the debt ceiling, which is not the most glamorous topic. But what Mucha saw was an opportunity to engage with an audience that was otherwise being ignored. Reaching out to Phillip Picardi, the Digital Editor at the time, who then forwarded her pitch to the Teen Vogue politics editor, led to interviews with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20). A common theme in Mucha's career is her fearlessness in reaching out to make that personal or professional connection.

"I flew to Texas and drove along with Joaquin Castro around his old neighborhoods. I got to go to one of his favorite restaurants; I mean, the amount of time he gave me for that profile was really generous. It was honestly a great time, and I got to go to a town meeting with him where he like blew up," said Mucha. "It was pretty emotional, and I got to write about and learn about that kind of journalism just by doing it."

While writing for Teen Vogue for a year, Mucha was also a News Associate for CNN. She worked her way up the ladder where she eventually spent nearly two years as a campaign embed covering then-Vice President Joe Biden's presidential run. But her CNN journey started with a cold email and an unintentional job interview, "That is the first lesson that I tell everyone, 'every conversation that you have as a job interview, whether you know it or not.'" 

And as a class of 2017 college graduate, her post-grad years began as former President Trump was taking office.

"Capitol Hill became the story, not a story; it was the story everyone was paying attention to. So I began my journalistic career at CNN during this very unconventional moment."

Even in her starting roles, Mucha found that CNN was full of friendly people who will help those who put themselves out there, and of course, casual name drops of Jake Tapper, John King, and Wolf Blitzer. And while visiting the Capitol before and after her shifts at CNN, she sat in on Phil Mattingly reporting on The Hill.

She describes the exchange of her introduction to Kristen Wilson via Mattingly as such: 

Mattingly: "Hey, I just met Sarah, and she said she wants to help."

Wilson: "Are you sure."

Mattingly: "Yes, she says she wants to write."

Wilson: "If you say that, I'm going to make you do it. Are you sure you want that?"

Mucha: "This is what I want."

Mucha was then on The Hill writing congressional previews; Wilson would turn into one of Mucha's many mentors and was the spark that led her down a path to what would be the wildest two years of her life.

"She [Kristen] sort of asked me if I would ever want to be an embedded? I was like, 'What's that?' And she explained it, and I was like, 'That sounds like the coolest job ever. Yeah, I do.' And I started to make it my mission to do that job, and everything I did was geared toward it.”

She then began reaching out to a wide variety of people like former embeds and even David Chalian, the political director at CNN, where she straight up told him that she admired him and wanted to work for him. He asked if she could edit his podcast, said, “I can learn”, which eventually led to her next role as an associate assignment editor. She would then pack that first go bag to head to Virginia to cover the Northam Scandal; she slowly gained more and more experience each time she grabbed that bag. Mucha was then hired as an embed, assigned to current President Biden's campaign, and became the "CNN one."

"We were in Minnesota, and I tried shouting a question; he couldn't hear me over the plane, it is always loud by the plane, but he had to go. I learned later that he was like, 'Oh, I felt rude; the CNN one tried to ask me something.' And then they set up a gaggle for us, where they grabbed all the reporters and have dedicated time to answering and asking questions," said Mucha.

The role of a campaign embed is varied and leaves little time to stop and reflect. Mucha compared the experience to being a computer whose processing chip was broken for two years. Her life was going all across the country, filming, transcribing, and producing.

Life on the trail brings a lot of challenges, and for a producer having your satellite down is do or die. Maybe not that dramatic, but the reality of campaign stops is that some are in more rural areas where a barn is the most practical meeting space. Setting up a live shot for Jeff Zeleny, the Chief National Affairs Correspondent for CNN, the control room could see Zeleny one moment; the next, they could not. The solution: throw the backpack that had the mobile satellite out the window.

"That was a really funny moment because all of these photographers caught on to what we were doing and went outside and started taking pictures of us throwing the live view out the window," said Mucha. "That picture is now in the New York Times somewhere."

Mucha was not the only embed following Biden across the country; other news stations such as CNBC and Fox send their own. But she said they quickly all became friends as you needed each other to get through the day-to-day craziness and stress that came with living out a suitcase for two years. If someone missed a quote from a stump speech, their fellow embeds would come to their aid. The competitiveness only manifested itself in the desire to get a story out first, get the source, but never at the jeopardy of their fellow embeds. "You experience something that very few people experience, and you do it together."

When asked if she would ever do it again, she referenced a quote from Betsy Klein, an embed in 2016, "She said it's the best job you only want once. So, it's the best job you never want again."

Diving deeper, being a woman in politics and journalism brings complications that men do not have. What may seem superficial, like what you wear each day, is more complicated as women can not rely on khaki pants and a polo. It was primarily women on the Biden beat, and they all went together to buy a whole new wardrobe throughout the campaign as New Hampshire and Iowa weather is vastly different from Nevada and California.

"I was definitely not at my shining fashion moments on the campaign trail," said Mucha. "That was something that we talked about missing a lot."

Now that she is back in D.C., she has more time to get creative with her fashion choices when commenting on MSNBC in her current role at Axios as a political reporter. Experimenting with color and utilizing Rent the Runway, a clothing rental service, she has reached a place where she is creating her own journalistic style.

The Georgetown alum has found success in a fast pace, complicated, and occasionally intimidating field. For aspiring journalists, taking that first step or asking that first question is not always easy. Mucha's first experience being on the Hill asking a question was during the monumental John McCain healthcare vote. She happened to be in the right place at the right time; while she does not remember the question she asked, the response from the prominent senator was, "Is that even a question."

After learning by watching veteran reporters, talking to the people who vote on policies that shape our country no longer phases her. May it be on the campaign bus or the Hill, Mucha knows it is her job to get the facts.

"I get to tell my kids that I asked the president, well a person who then became the president of the United States, questions."

Kathryn Chavez is a First Year Master of Public Policy student at the McCourt School. Originally from outside Dallas, Texas, she graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2021 with degrees in Business Management, Advertising and Fashion Media with a minor in Journalism.