She was caught doing her job at breakneck speed.

An Associated Press photo captured NBC News intern Cassie Semyon, KLN ’19, sprinting – in flat sandals – from the federal courthouse in Arlington, Virginia, to deliver the verdict in the tax and bank fraud trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. 

Twitter smiled collectively with the hashtag #GoBlueDressGo, she became a hero to journalists everywhere and a Klein College standard-bearer who slays negative stereotypes about young people. 

“So proud. Have you ever seen a better picture of a journalist running to break news of a verdict,” tweeted Andrea Mitchell, the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent and anchor of “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC. Mitchell ended her Aug. 22 broadcast with a brief tribute to Semyon, who had to deliver the news on foot because electronic devices were prohibited in the courthouse.

NBC’s “Today” featured a live interview with Semyon on Aug. 24, her last day as an intern for the network’s news division in Washington, D.C. 

Accompanied by a looped video clip of the famous sprint, show host Sheinelle Jones, in New York, took Semyon back to the moment she became an Internet sensation and asked the outgoing intern: “It was breaking news. What were you thinking?” 

“Um, trying not to fall I guess,” Semyon answered. “Honestly, in my mind I was just worried about getting outside and doing my job, and I had no idea it was caught on camera until the AP photographer came up to me afterward, and I thought I was just going to have a cool Instagram photo. I didn’t think it was going to go viral.”

Semyon, who reports for Temple Update on TUTV, told Jones she’s overwhelmed by the attention.

“We’re used to being on the other side of the camera, asking the questions, not being the story,” she said, adding that she will retire the flats she wore. In closing the “Today” segment, Jones, a former host of Fox 29’s “Good Day Philadelphia” morning show, pointed out Semyon’s ties to the university. 

“Temple should be very proud,” she said just before co-anchor Craig Melvin hinted that he had hoped “someone in the building” at NBC had noticed.

Runner’s World, “Inside Edition,” the Chicago Tribune and USA Today are among the publications that featured Semyon in the three days between the Manafort verdict and her last day as an NBC intern. The network declined requests to interview her for this story and she couldn’t be reached for comment through Temple channels.   

According to those published reports, however, Semyon, of Lackawanna County, is a former track athlete who graduated in 2015 from Riverside High School near Scranton. 

Several Twitter observers praised the photo for what it said about young people, hard work and the pursuit of journalism. 

“Forever living my life with drive and determination of @casssemyon #GoBlueDressGo”

Please, someone who can use PhotoShop, put a SuperHero cape on Miss Cassie! #GoBlueDressGo”

There’s even a meme of Semyon’s photographed sprint superimposed on a Wheaties box with the caption, “MEET THE PRESS.”

Klein College Associate Professor of Practice Paul Gluck, the general manager of TUTV, said the photo captured Semyon’s drive to deliver the story correctly and ahead of the competition. 

“If anything in this life doesn’t surprise me it would be Cassie running like an Olympian in order to get the story,” Gluck said in an interview. “To see it online, on Twitter and Facebook, that was a pleasant surprise.”

He called her an “extraordinarily focused” journalist who has an “ironclad work ethic that would make any editor smile.”

Semyon works for TUTV and Temple Update and also helped craft a compelling half-hour documentary on Klein College namesake Lew Klein. 

According to her Twitter page, Semyon has interned at 6 ABC News in Philadelphia. Gluck said she has a strong interest in politics and political reporting and great fascination with political reporting and how government functions.

“Cassie’s a force of nature. She moves with cyclonic intensity and has a great sense of humor and certainly enjoys this,” Gluck said. “It’s not just her dedication, but it’s obvious that she gets great pleasure out of doing this.”