James Kattato Jay

Emmy-winning sports journalist

contagious high-energy excitement to sports writing

James 26 year old sports journalist

Covers local sports in the hampton roads area

MMj shoots edits writes anchors

Graduated from Syracuse

Grew up in upstate ny in a musical driven households

Loves sports

discovered an interest in sports broadcasting at the age of 13

"Broadcasting the mix of performing and sports for me"

Broadcasting and Mass Communications at SUNY COVID ENDED NESN INTERNSHIP EARLY

TOOK SUMMER CLASSES EARLY

MASTERS IN BROADCAST AND DIGITAL JOURNALISM - SYRACUSE 2022

FIRST JOB WKBW IN BUFFALLO

MORNING NEWS REPORTING

SPLIT TIMES BETWEEN GENERAL NEWS AND SPORTS

4 AM CALL TIME

2.5 HOURS COMMUTE BETWEEN SYRACUSE AND BUFFALO

MY LIFE BECAME THE JOB VERY QUICKLY

DEFINING MOMENT: BUFFALO MASS SHOOTING COVERAGE

FIRST MAJOR ASSIGNMENT

COVERED A 10K PERSON MARCH

FILMED EDITED AND REPORTED SAME DAY

RETURNED ONE YEAR LATER FOR ANNIVERARY STORY

YOU SAW PEOPLE AT THEIR ABSOLUTE WORST DAY POSSIBLE

MOVED TO NORFOLK IN 2024

COVERS ODU HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL, NSU

PRODUCES DIGITAL SPORTS CONTENT

SPORTS WRAP SIT DOWNS ON WAVY 10 +

THE MEDIA LANSCAPE TODAY

LOCAL TV RATING DECLINING

BIG PUSH TOWARDS DIGITAL SPORTS

JAMES IS ADAPTING ONLINE PLATFORMS

WHERE HE IS TODAY

BALANCING SHOOTING, EDITING ANCHORING AT WAVY TV 10

FOCUS ON DIGITAL SPORTS CONTENT

LOVES THE ENERGY OF THE CURRENT FOOTBALL SEASON

IT'S A SPRINT RIGHT NOW, BUT IT'S A BLAST AND I WOULDN'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING

RESILIENCE DEDICATION

EMPATHY DRIVEN

ADAPTING TO NEW MEDIA CHALLENGES

VA Sportscaster of the Year Emmy

(Dictation 33)

towards his dream job of working in sports broadcasting because I'm an ODU football fan and I've seen some of his videos on social media and I was kind of inspired by his is contagious like high energy and excitement that he brings to everything he does you can tell he is really passionate about what he and he's only about like a little less than 2 years older than me so I was really interested in hearing from him and seeing how he got so far at such a young age and where he is Sports journalist for Wavy TV in Norfolk Virginia he covers local sports in the Hampton Roads area and he covers everything from ODU to Norfolk State to Friday night high school games and he produces most of his contact himself so he's editing writing anchoring has experience in a lot of it as he was growing up he grew up in Upstate New York in a entertainment and Performing musical driven family so he shared with me a lot of memories time where he performs The National Anthem with his mama on stage she performed in multiple talent shows and he also performed in different plays in a European kind of shifted his interest into sports in doing that he was trying to kind of balance the two passions that he had carried with him and he at the age of 13 James had attended a career fair where he stumbled upon the KISS FM booth and someone there told him that you know broadcasting would be a great way to combine his passion for entertainment and Performing all together into one career and that's kind of where everything sort of clipped for him so James earned his bachelor's degree in broadcasting and mass communications at SUNY Oswego State University in 2020 you're in college he was an intern for the New England Sports Network in Boston as a broadcast production associate but unfortunately due to the pandemic that was cut short and with the pandemic making in-person classes and work impossible and kind of that looming idea of like you don't know what's going to happen next season decided he's going to drop his two minors online classes and graduate early so we can get ahead of that with that after facing those difficulties it was also hard for him to find a job to just go ahead and continue his education where he earned a master's degree in broadcasting digital journalism from Syracuse University in 2022 so his first full-time job was working with wpkl in Buffalo New York under a 1-year contracts he worked a very demanding schedule he would arrive at the arrive at the station by 4:00 in the morning and he slept his time between covering Morning News and sports commute from his apartment back in Syracuse where he was staying to finish up his Masters and then he would drive back to the second apartment in Buffalo for the Morning News Monday through Thursday balancing his mental and physical health during this time period and he had told me that life became the job very quickly and working here he also got an opportunity to shoot for games for Buffalo Bills games on Sundays and doing this kind of reminded him of his goal that he wanted to do full-time Sports so when he had joined WKBW this was in May of 2022 and they're not saying month of mass shooting that happened at a local grocery store that claims the lives of 10 people and this would mark his first big news project for the station actually on the first Saturday where he was at work James was supposed to Shadow one of the reporters And the reporter called out of work and so this person that he was supposed to Shadow was going to go and report a demonstration with about 10,000 people on what happened Jefferson Avenue and since no one could cover it he decided to volunteer and so he volunteered to come to March knowing that he had enough experience to build he found an edited the storage himself despite being a brand new hire from the channel his boss later was shocked that he picked up this role and he told me that his boss told him I tell you to never do that again but you did a good job if they continue to cover the aftermath of the shooting throughout the year that he was there and he returned to the story toward the end of his contract which kind of felt like a big full circle moment for him and his experience covering the story he told me he would stay with him forever and really changed the way he approaches telling stories and he now approaches tell a story with a lot more empathy and understanding for the community that he's in so now in the summer of 2023 James is now in Norfolk Virginia and he became a full-time Sports Journal Hampton Roads area the Hampton Roads Sports scene specifically where he now regularly covers Old Dominion University footballs program along with Friday night high school games and other local he also has started doing on sports bra sit-downs that are on Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on the wave 10 plus streaming Channel which are 24 minute interviews with local athletes okay I will go to the next slide and then I'll come back to this video I don't want to keep you guys waiting whole thing to avoid the problem of the video not playing it's still not playing okay so when I was interviewing JC also talked a lot about how fast the media industry is changing and local television ratings are slowly dropping so stations are now shifting their focus to digital platforms and wants to make sure that he's a step ahead of his change and because of this he works on building his digital footprint as a sports journalist and has been adapting by creating and editing short form content that he uploads to Tik Tok and Instagram reels so today James is doing everything he dreamed of doing in local sports broadcasting he creates his own digital content works for content works for and I'm sorry and with it being a football season right now he told me that this is the most exciting time for him and that the pace of the job and everything is something like you wouldn't want to do anything else he enjoys every aspect of this season so in conclusion the journey he shared with me is one I feel that's a Brazilians empathy and dedication to the craft that he loves and truly believes in he really encouraged me to go after goals stay on top of the way Mia is changing and start doing things that set yourself apart from other people and what I learned from James and what I feel like makes him stand out the most is that he really does care a lot his passion for storytelling even in the World of Sports you know transition kind of more from the news world into doing what he does now and he kind of just sit it seems like he has like way more experience than you know you know well I mean has a lot of experience but he just seems like he's been in this for a while and that makes sense any questions he he definitely is what you said that he has a old soul but he just seems like he has so much more experience and then 26 it's hard for me to rationalize 26 I have been working with my boss here at OU to get James on staff so he'll be hopefully soon maybe next that's awesome 2-hour journalism students is just fantastic I was standing right beside him when he got that anyway just so excited I took a video about like I was just right she's going up and that can be on the left was the same pastor of Virginia I'll go back to what we were talking about with mellow for him like you bringing that up about how he was working he had an apartment in one city driving 2 and a half hours to get to the other city I mean the tenacity of going for what you want and will it what can I do today that will get me where I want to be tomorrow and how how can I create those relationships and you know I think it's very obvious I loved that you said at the beginning what what you or John to was his contagious