{"id":12047,"date":"2023-02-13T09:25:28","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T14:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=12047"},"modified":"2023-10-11T15:32:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T19:32:22","slug":"covering-the-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=12047","title":{"rendered":"Covering the crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

On September 8, Stephanie Petit \u201913 sat at the desk in her New Jersey home anxiously anticipating the news that was to come from overseas. And as soon as she saw the official tweet from the British royal family announcing Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s death, Petit clicked \u201cpublish\u201d on her biggest story to date as staff editor for People<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n

Petit, who has been part of People\u2019s<\/em> royal family beat since 2018, collaborates daily with a global team to share the day-to-day happenings \u2014 from palatial celebrations to rumor-mill scandals \u2014 within the monarchy. But no news was bigger than the queen\u2019s passing, with People\u2019s<\/em> obituary about her receiving more than half a million views. In total, Petit\u2019s team wrote more than 400 stories in the weeks leading to Elizabeth\u2019s funeral, chronicling everything from her timeless fashion sense to her high-profile friendships.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was such a huge figure around the world,\u201d says Petit. \u201cI wanted us to be a reliable source for people who were fascinated by the human interest and historical aspects of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because she\u2019s on a beat that is constantly in the public eye, Petit is sometimes subjected to unsolicited news tips from family and friends. Take this post on her personal Twitter the day the queen died: \u201cBig shout out to my mom who texted me, \u2018It\u2019s official. She died,\u2019 two hours after the news was publicly announced, as if I hadn\u2019t been paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petit\u2019s enchantment with the royals started as a TCNJ sophomore when she and her Decker Hall suitemates vowed to stay up late to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton\u2019s wedding. But the time difference prevailed; they all fell asleep. She got a re-do in 2018, now officially working for People<\/em> and tasked with reporting all the pomp as William\u2019s brother, Prince Harry, tied the knot with actress Meghan Markle. Petit\u2019s favorite detail to share: the hand embroidered flowers on the bride\u2019s veil included California poppies from Markle\u2019s home state and wintersweet from Kensington Palace.<\/p>\n

Today, Petit routinely wakes before 5 a.m. to begin curating the news from across the pond. (A bit ironic, considering that although she cut her teeth in Professor Emilie Lounsberry\u2019s journalism classes, she never took a magazine writing course because it started at the wee hour of 8 a.m.) She and her team will follow the family\u2019s transition to a new era, including the lead up to King Charles III\u2019s coronation later this year and William\u2019s rise in prominence as he stands next in the line of succession. \u201cWe\u2019re writing the next chapter of the monarchy as it unfolds,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

That includes her recent travel to Boston to cover the Earthshot Prize, a prestigious environmental award that Prince William and the Royal Foundation created. It was the first visit to the U.S. for William and Kate since 2014 and their first overseas tour with the title Prince and Princess of Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see them in action was pretty exciting,\u201d says Petit who was also tapped as a pool reporter for the event, meaning her notes were distributed to all U.S.-based outlets who were there, including Vanity Fair<\/em>, The Huffington Post<\/em>, and Town & Country Magazine<\/em>, to name a few. \u201cWhat\u2019s not exciting about being just a few feet away from a future king and queen?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Picture: Peter Murphy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Petit \u201913 has a royally cool job at People magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":327,"featured_media":12075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12047"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12414,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12047\/revisions\/12414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}