By SPORTS JOURNALISM
Everyone has to start somewhere when charging head-on into a career. The same goes for the current Sports Editor of the Times Union, Pete Iorizzo, who started his career as a sports journalist covering rodeo fresh out of college, a true story of starting from the bottom.
Iorizzo spoke with the Sports Journalism class at The College of Saint Rose and talked about packing all his belongings, leaving his nest in New Jersey, and beginning his career cross-country in Idaho, to now being the Sports Editor of one of the Capital Region’s most prominent media outlets.
A graduate of Syracuse University, Iorizzo first started his career in Idaho, a long way from his home state of New Jersey. As a sports journalist for a local paper, Iorizzo covered rodeos, something he knew nothing about. After calling Idaho home for several years, Iorizzo got a call from a connection he had back on the east coast, and was offered a job as a sports reporter at the Times Union in Albany. Over the years, Iorizzo has worked his way up the food chain, going from a sports reporter, to working a crime beat, to now his current position as sports editor.
Having worked his way up the chain in the journalism industry, Iorizzo provided the students with valuable information to be applied to their futures in the journalism field. His humorous stories, along with great insight and extraordinary level of experience are bound to leave lasting images on the students. Iorizzo’s experience and passion for journalism is easily expressed in his writing, “Every sentence in every story should count,” says Iorizzo.
Being a sports editor doesn’t necessarily mean sitting down at a desk, proofreading every story that’s going to be published, at least, that’s not how it is for Iorizzo, whose typical day consists of back-to-back meetings. “Ten percent of the job is actually editing,” he says adding that the editing process is usually the final part of the day. “It doesn’t take me too long to do,” he says adding that usually the more important aspects of his position is to figure out what articles were to be used and their placement in the paper the following morning. Iorizzo always tries keeping keep fresh eyes for his own writing, “Sometimes I change fonts, sometimes I email myself the article just so I can read it on my phone.” Iorizzo said he does this so it helps him read it more like how his readers will read it the following morning. “Sometimes its hard to not have your eyes glaze over as you read and when that happens you can miss some vital errors.”
Iorizzo broke it down for the Saint Rose journalism student by assessing the three most essential fundamentals to being successful in the sports journalism field. “Write as much as you can, for anybody you can,” he said. This meaning he encouraged students to keep writing, however, whenever, and about whatever, it makes a good writer and shows potential. “Network, it’s important,” he mentioned. Although Iorizzo said “This may sound a bit cliche, it’s really very true.” Networking is essential to making the professional relationships needed to be a writer. “Be realistic and flexible about expectations,” he finally mentioned. This means that all journalism students should remain level-headed about their outcome.
While watching live games is a plus to being a sports journalists, it’s not all fun in games. When speaking about professional friendships, Iorizzo noted that it is important to remember what a sports journalists job is, and it is not to make people happy. He recalled many times in his career when he had to write stories that did not shed a positive light on the friends he had made on his beat. However, as Iorizzo said about the uncomfortable situation, “Anyone that has feelings is going to feel bad about it, [but] it is your job to call it as it is.”
Iorizzo gave one of his most important pieces of information to the college students on how to approach job opportunities in the mass media industry, “Today there are more outlets available to people then there have ever been before, even compared to when I first started out in the industry you had to work for a newspaper,” said Iorizzo. The editor then offered up more advice by saying, “Write as much as you can for anyone you can. “In the end all that matters is that people can see you write well and can preform in a real-world work environment.” Iorizzo touched on the importance of building professional relationships, “Network. You never know how relationships will work in the time to come.”.
Iorizzo says sometimes when he is trying to figure out what to lead with in a story he breaks it down and makes it simple. If after the game someone were to come up to you and ask how it went, whatever you would say should be your starting point. “He really gave some great tips. I’ve been reading his articles for a few years and until he visited our class I didn’t realize how he went about writing his articles. As a journalism major, his visit will really stick with me,” said Matthew Woods, a junior at Saint Rose.
Iorizzo also admitted that sometimes his stories could get a bit to “wordy” or complicated. Iorizzo recalled a time where he was told to just get to the point and say what he wanted to say, “Every sentence in every story should count.”
One Saint Rose student that could relate to Iorizzo’s writing style was Amal Tlaige. “I like that I could relate to Iorizzio. He talked about how as a journalist he often overwrites, which is a problem that I sometimes have, too,” says Tlaige. “He made a valuable point when he said that no one wants to hear a bunch of ‘mumbo jumbo’. If you have something to say, then say it. You don’t want to bore your audience.”
Another person who sat in to listen to Iorizzo was Saint Rose Assistant Athletics Director for Communications Dave Alexander, who commented about what he thought about the visit and Iorizzo as a writer, “I would say that Pete is a consummate professional,” says Alexander. “The fact that he is the sports editor at such a young age speaks volumes about him.” Both Iorizzo and Alexander share similar beliefs in the importance of writing as much as possible to become a better overall writer. Perhaps considering himself a fan of Iorizzo, Alexander reads his articles quite often, “I read his work regularly and think it is outstanding.”
Iorizzo is not only well respected by his readers, but his competition, too. WNYT Sports Anchor Rodger Wyland went as far as to say, “Pete is the best columnist I have seen in my near 30 years in Albany.”
Listen to an interview by Blaise Bryant with Pete Iorizzo
