A Sports Business and Media Executive emphasized to William Paterson student journalists the importance of maintaining an ambitious mindset to succeed early in their careers.
Chris Vaccaro, an Emmy and Murrow Award-winning media executive and sports journalist, spoke to a journalism class on Wednesday, March 5, about how pushing for creative innovation and change are sure-fire ways to a successful career.
“My entire existence has been built on pushing innovation,” he said. “My one word of advice: media is only as good as its evolution. We are only as strong as our ability to evolve as storytellers.”
Vaccaro started his career with a dream of becoming a sports writer and began broadcasting for his high school radio to build self-confidence. He wanted to harness his skills while he was young to get a head start. He wanted to push himself from the beginning so he could always be in a position to win.
When he was fresh out of college, he was working for Southampton Press covering high school sports when he got a call from a friend at Daily News. After one interview, he was hired on the spot when he confessed his “need to climb the ladder and be innovative.”
Vaccaro then worked for AOL’s Patch.com as a regional editor, and Topps where he pioneered digital collectibles, helping generate $150 million in revenue.
In his role at Topps, he was managing budgets and technology and eventually became a head business liaison. He began to share his visions with the higher-ups and was learning the vernacular of executive-level business.
He then landed a top position at Altice USA, VP of Digital, Social Media and Streaming, where he refined product management processes and became the steward for professional development for the company.
“All because of my attitude, my confidence, and my ability to learn a hell of a lot by asking questions and putting myself in a position to make it,” he said.
At 31, he now knew what he liked, which was, “communicating with a team.” He enjoyed allowing people to contribute and find their own voices.
With the industry always changing, Vaccaro was forced to change as well, from his vision originally being solely focused on sports writing, he wanted to continue to do bigger and better things.
The keyword in the industry at this point was “multi-platform”, which became the center of Vaccaro’s career, rhetoric, and research.
“Everything is about multi-platform storytelling, whether it’s PR, marketing, communications, journalism, video, or narrative, it does not matter,” he said, “everybody must be able to post their content on multiple platforms to hit multiple audiences.”
His work at News 12 allowed him to become the recipient of two Emmys and a few David Murrow awards, but he still felt he had even more potential to be better and grow.
“I wanted to be aggressive.”
Vaccaro worked briefly to develop an AI company, at the time when AI had just gotten introduced, creating an out of the norm experience. He then moved on to become Vice President of a new company, ARK, where he is overseeing a division that is client-driven and helps with multi-platform storytelling innovation.
At his core, Chris Vaccaro is a very community-driven person, always helping people when they need it, contributing what he can to his community, and believes that he is “part of what it is.”
Aside from raising grant money for kids and families, he is constantly trying to bridge the gap between America and Italy in the sport of baseball as he tries to create a legacy for his children.
Simplifying everything he’s done, “it all comes down to communicating a message,” he said. “I harnessed the skill and ability to communicate as early as 14 and 15…I wouldn’t be speaking to you today if I didn’t continue to improve upon that and all those other positions.”
Vaccaro wrote the textbook, “News Writing & Reporting” for the COMM 2500 class since he felt it was important for journalism students to know what happens in the background, and he wanted to put an emphasis on the importance of multi-platform in the industry.
From the beginning, Vaccaro wanted to be a sports writer. When asked about why he ventured into the business side of things, he explained that he felt qualified enough to do it.
“There’s way more things that I was qualified for than just sports. I felt like those positions gave me more power, more responsibility, and more money…and all the things that come with it, better titles, and more room for learning.”
He’s always kept one foot in the door of writing, whether it was freelance or for his current job. He likes the responsibility of telling people what is happening in his community especially since no one else does it.
“I cannot not write, it’s part of who I am.”
A major factor in the success of Vaccaro’s career was his inability to sit still. He always took advantage of opportunities as they came and kept looking for the ones that were bigger and better.
“You’re only going to learn if you put yourself in a different environment.”
Throughout his time with the class, Vaccaro constantly brought the topic back to the necessity of experimenting and never being fully content with where you are in your current position, advising the students to, “constantly put yourself in that training mode.”
He emphasized that small changes lead to bigger changes and greater opportunities and that it’s important to know that the things you are doing can be bigger than yourself.
