PROFILE
“When the traffic girl quit,
the station needed a backup
and asked me to step in,
so I said I would give it a shot.”
CARA DI FALCO
News 12 New Jersey Traffic Anchor
Steven Miller, Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of
Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers, who was Di Falco’s professor and
academic advisor, says Di Falco is a marvelous person and was a standout student.
“The alums of our program are unbelievable. They know how to work hard and
they’re hungry,” says Miller. “That’s Cara in a nutshell. She not only was in our
program, but she was in Rutgers Television, and she ran the place. She was doing
everything and anything, and not only excelled at production, but at writing,
too,” he notes.
In addition to the morning traffic report, Di Falco hosts her own cooking
segment, “Cara’s Cucina.” It’s not surprising that the segment also wasn’t
something she originally had planned. “I had pitched a simpler idea, but it
grew into this. I told producers that my family and I were going to be cooking
and I wanted to share the recipe and some video footage of it on our website,”
Di Falco says. Once it aired, she was asked to prepare another dish for the
following week. “My mom, my aunts and my neighbor from Kinnelon will
sometimes make appearances on the segment,” she says. “And, that’s my
favorite thing about it. It’s not the recipes. It’s how the food brings people
and their stories together,” she says. ■
WHEREVER NEEDED Di Falco’s skills enable her
to anchor the news, report traffic conditions
and cover events on location for News 12.
MAY 2015
WAYNE MAGAZINE 49