As the director of domestic and international ENG operations at ABC News, Lafferty was responsible for the technical aspects of the coverage of the Queen’s death across all the ABC News shows and platforms.

“Our team worked closely with the ABC shows, executive producers and operations teams to design the technical setup and transmission schemes to deliver the show to the ABC Television Network,” said Lafferty.

With the total global audience reaching an estimated 4.1 billion viewers, the majority of the planet, Lafferty’s work was undoubtedly important. Lafferty took on the task gracefully and was very pleased with the results.

“Our coverage I felt was incredible. The story, visually, was breathtaking and I felt we captured the emotion quite well,” he said.

Lafferty said that he learns something about himself whenever he covers a news story and this coverage was no exception.

“The coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral was a historical event and it was not something I will ever forget,” said Lafferty. “The trip took me to Scotland, London and Windsor and I witnessed the emotion firsthand of how much the queen meant to the United Kingdom.”

Working at and managing the Quinnipiac radio station when he was a communications student, Lafferty is able to attribute part of who he is today because of his time at Quinnipiac.

“I think we all take away different things from our time in college,” he said. “For me it was the hands on approach to the classes in film editing and radio production that sparked my interest in broadcast media.”

In an everchanging world, broadcasting has greatly evolved and forced professionals to change the way they cover news. Lafferty says while technology is changing, the stories that are being told remain the same.

“Serving the needs of an audience that consumes news through social media channels has been challenging, but it doesn’t necessarily change the way we go about the storytelling aspect of news,” Lafferty said.