ALUMNI PROFILES BY DECADE
2000s
All in the Family:
Grit, Curiosity, and Television
W
hen ABC anchor David Muir interrupts programming with breaking news, “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) satirizes that news, and Bloomberg Television analyzes how the market is reacting, a Shaker sibling is just off camera. Molly Shaker KLHT’04 produces Muir’s breaking news, Grace Shaker KLHT’07 produces “SNL” sketches, and Will Shaker KLHT’10 produces Bloomberg’s television broadcasts. “Our family text thread is pretty interesting in terms of current events,” Will said. “They reflect just about everything that is going on in the world on any given day.” The siblings are the third generation of Shakers to work in media. Their grandfather, Theodore Shaker, was an executive for ABC and CBS. Their father, Ted Shaker K’68, grew up watching television productions from behind the scenes. He became a producer, earning 13 Emmys and two Peabody Awards. Ted met his wife, Sheryl, in the business, and they had storied careers while raising their three children in New Canaan. Like television, King is also a family tradition. Ted attended in the 1960s. Molly entered Grade 8 in 1999. Soon after, Grace and Will entered the Lower School. The Shakers have thrived with the benefit of being siblings on parallel paths.
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Molly Shaker steps in front of the camera during a production break.
MOLLY SHAKER: FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL NEWS Molly’s dream was to write for The New Yorker. “I have always gravitated toward writing,” said Molly, who earned an English degree from the University of Vermont (UVM). “King really nurtured my love of reading, writing, and literature.” She started her career as a reporter for a weekly paper in Charlotte, Vermont, not far from UVM. For two years, she honed her craft, riding on tractors alongside farmers to write stories about the trials of agrarian life. She also delivered the paper. Molly moved back to New Canaan in 2008, the economy stalled, and the decline of newspapers accelerated. Realizing that a future in print might
not be practical, she began networking in New York. A conversation with a producer at “Good Morning America” (“GMA”) led to a freelance position with Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, which publishes financial research reports. “One day I was packing for a trip, and the ‘GMA’ producer called and said, ‘I need a freelance script coordinator,’” Molly recalled, adding that the job was a glorified intern position for a shift from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m. “I canceled my trip and started two days later.” That was 2010; she has been at ABC since. Within a few years of her arrival, Molly was writing copy for anchors, producing shows, and traveling the world. She worked with teams covering the ISIS suicide bombings in Brussels in 2016, glaciers melting in Iceland, animals migrating in Tanzania, and
