Chris Vaccaro came to speak to the Journalism class on November 15th. He is a journalist with a wide range of experience throughout his career. Mr. Vaccaro is in charge of public relations for the  Patchouge -Medford and Sachem School Districts. One lesson he impressed upon us is that he has stayed true to his roots. He also kept coming back to the importance of one’s resume. He explained that to be successful, you need to constantly build it up. His advise was to be sure to write a ton and also to make sure you intern when you can. It is important to  get your foot in the door. After that it will be up to you if you want to keep pursuing this. Mr. Vaccaro teaches a journalism classes at Hofstra University, and he encourages his students to do these exact things to be successful. He is a very direct and honest person. He tells his juniors that if they haven’t started to intern by that point to get into the field, then they should stop wasting their money.

Chris Vaccaro has worked in many fields throughout his career. From the beginning, he hit the ground running. He had to sacrifice time with his friends and family, but it was worth it. He started as the sports editor in college at Hofstra, and just kept going. From there, he interned at Newsday, and in his senior year of college, he had a full-time job. He was an editor at the New York Daily News and one of the youngest ever to have that title, but he only stayed for six months. He moved on to AOL, and had some pretty great experiences there also. He covered a Super Bowl for them and got to actually go there. Mr. Vaccaro is a very smart man – he can recognize when it is time to leave. He saw things getting bad at AOL, and took a risk and left the company. It paid off for him, and he got a job at TOPPS. He worked his was up in the company and is now one of the executives at TOPPS digital. He runs the apps that they have for trading cards, and he loves what he does.

His message throughout this whole time was to stay aggressive at all times and take any opportunity that is thrown your way. Building your resume is key and doing it constantly will help you so much in the long run. He explained that what he does isn’t work because he loves it. So no matter what it is that you do, make sure you have a passion for it.