Elias Miller’s Journey from BUTV to Meet the Press

Even though Elias Miller grew up in Paris, he started watching American political satire shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as a teen. He loved them—and found that he was fascinated by US politics.

“I was drawn to the comedy. But I enjoyed seeing how they used comedy to make a point about the state of affairs and things that were happening in society,” says Miller (COM’21, CAS’21), an associate producer on NBC’s political and public affairs program Meet the Press. “With Jon Stewart especially, I really liked him for his jokes, but I came to admire him more for his quality of journalism and how, when he interviewed a political guest, he had his research ready. He knew what to say and what to ask.” 

Miller’s mother is French and his father is from Ohio. They met in the US, but moved to France, where they raised Miller. When his father saw Miller’s interests in politics and journalism grow, he helped him find a summer program where he could learn more about those subjects. COM’s Summer Journalism Academy for high school students caught their eye.

In the summer of 2015, Miller packed his bags to travel to Boston for the first time. “The Summer Journalism Academy was kind of my first foray into what journalism’s like without the jokes,” he recalls. Miller says that he was thrilled to learn about so many different aspects of journalism—and to hear real talk about the profession from accomplished journalists. “I remember one of our instructors telling us what it was like to be a local reporter, having to cover [difficult subjects], like crime, but also being like, ‘I’m teaching this class because it’s been the most fulfilling job that I’ve had.’ It was a very good experience. From going in not knowing anything, I learned a lot—about how to write a story, about ethics.”

Miller enjoyed the program so much that when it came time for college, he decided to attend BU to pursue degrees in journalism and political science. He even served as a program assistant for the Summer Journalism Academy in 2018.

Learning by Doing

At COM, many of Miller’s instructors emphasized taking advantage of opportunities on campus outside of the classroom that would provide hands-on experience—from writing for the Daily Free Press, to getting involved with WTBU, the campus radio station, to working on a program with BUTV (then butv10), BU’s student-led broadcast station.

Miller says joining BUTV was a highlight of his time at BU. He fondly recalls the station’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election, when he and his fellow students had organized various special programs.

Miller’s work with the campus TV station even helped lead to his job at Meet the Press. Miller cofounded a show on butv10 called Gov’t Center, which “was just like Meet the Press for a local BU audience,” he says. “We figured out that members of Congress would speak with us, even though we were just college students. We had programming that I felt at the time could rival what you saw on local stations like WBZ.” Guests on episodes of Gov’t Center included then-Boston mayor Marty Walsh and then-Boston City Councilors Michelle Wu and Andrea Campbell, who were running for mayor at the time. Some of Miller’s peers at BUTV had done Meet the Press internships and helped guide him in securing one the summer and fall after his junior year.

Landing at Meet the Press

When Miller was a senior, inspired by his internship at Meet the Press, he applied to be an NBC News Associate, a 12-month program with rotating assignments across NBC’s different programs and platforms. When he applied, he requested to start his rotation at Meet the Press. He never rotated off the show and earned a promotion to full-time production associate after about five months.

In his time at Meet the Press, he has seen a change in moderators (longtime moderator Chuck Todd stepped down in 2023 and was replaced by Kristen Welker). Miller says that each host shapes the show a little differently. “The hosts of Meet the Press, including Chuck and Kristen, have all had their own angle into approaching the wider view of things—like, here’s how we take the eagle eye view of not just the politics of the week, but what it says about us more broadly.” 

Miller also notes that introducing new segments have kept the long-running show fresh. He points to a “Meet the Press Minute” segment, introduced a couple years ago, in which the show draws from its archives and airs clips relevant to what is happening in the political world today. For example, a recent segment related Kamala Harris’ run for president to Geraldine Ferraro’s historic 1984 run as the first woman vice-presidential nominee for a major American political party. “Meet the Press has this 75-plus year history, where it’s been on the air since 1947. There are so many aspects of history that maybe don’t repeat, but they do rhyme. You see shadows of the past in the present,” Miller says.

The rapidly changing nature of today’s political landscape has also made for some interesting experiences as a producer, he says. For instance, President Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race just hours after Meet the Press went off the air on July 21. It just so happened that the show was going to be off the air for the next three weeks because of NBC’s coverage of the summer Olympics. 

“Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate. All that happened while Meet the Press was off the air,” Miller says. “What happened is we had this plan to come back and use that as a strength—we were like, let’s reset. The race is completely different from the last time we were on the air, but here are the things that will matter.”

While working at NBC, Miller has also had the opportunity to flex his producing skills in working with fellow COM alum Steve Kornacki (’01) on the upcoming second season of the podcast The Revolution with Steve Kornacki. In each season of the podcast, Kornacki aims to look into a major turning point in history and its impact. The first season explored the 1994 midterm election, and how Newt Gingrich helped the GOP take the House majority for the first time in four decades. While he can’t say much about the second season, Miller promises it’s “absolutely worth the listen. It’s very well produced, and I’m not saying that to pat myself on the back. There are a lot of people who work on it. It’s a podcast that will deepen your understanding of history and politics.” 

Back to BU

Miller will return to campus on September 28 to speak at COM’s symposium Black Media: Pioneers Then and Now. He says his experience in NBC’s News Associates Program will inform some of what he discusses. “This is something I hope to let students know about—the wealth of early career programs, like the News Associates Program, that are available.”

His time at BUTV left such an indelible mark on him that it will also inspire much of what he has to say. “I still hold very fond memories of working there,” he says. “I picked up a lot of skills there [that] I use today.”