Monthly Archives: November 2011

Christie Rotondo (foreground) reporting an alpaca story this summer for the Gazette Newspapers of Cape May County, NJ

All reporters at the New York Daily News yearn to get their stories on “The Wood,” which is newsroom jargon for the front page. Purchase journalism student Christie Rotondo pulled it off while still just an intern there. Rotondo, a junior at Purchase, shared a Nov. 11 byline on a front page story about anti-semitic vandalism in Midwood, Brooklyn. Rotondo had been assigned to write obits that day but was sent to the scene where three cars had been torched. She worked the story all day and didn’t realize she’d made the front page until she got an email from Purchase Journalism Professor Ross Daly congratulating her. “I definitely learned a lot from working the scene,” says Rotondo, “and seeing my story on the cover was the ultimate payoff.”

Kyle Kalotschke shown here with his idol: Bob Costas

Purchase journalism program alum, Kyle Kalotschke (class of ’10), returned to campus last week to share his experiences as Web Editor at Regional News Network (RNN-TV) – a postition he landed after applying to a job listing on LinkedIn. As is often the case for reporters in their early days, he’s working when the rest of us are sleeping. “It’s a brutal schedule, but you get used to it after a while,” he said. He’s in charge of social media and getting news video off the TV and onto the web. Kyle had some great war stories to tell the two journalism classes he talked to. Among them: a formative encounter he had with his hero, sportscaster Bob Costas, and how he once had to dress up as the Easter Bunny for live television when he was interning at The Early Show on CBS.