When I joined the Daily Sun as a sports reporter in 1994, I had no designs on a journalism career — I was honestly just homesick and trying to find my place as a Cornell freshman. Three decades later, as I help shape the next chapter of political and policy journalism at POLITICO, I can’t imagine my career without the Sun.
I spent two years reporting on everything from wrestling to ice hockey before Adam Thompson '97 and Brad Sherman '98 pushed me to become an assistant sports editor in my junior year. At the time I was worried that I simply couldn’t take on an editing job and still pull off a demanding computer and government double major, but I took the leap and got hooked on the rhythms and energy of a daily newsroom, and the adrenaline rush of pulling an edition together on a 3 a.m. deadline.
There’s a direct line between that experience and my work now. But at this moment of dizzying change in the economy, politics and journalism, it’s worth noting that my journalism career hasn’t been a direct line — it’s been decidedly nonlinear. Upon graduating in 1998, I still didn’t think of journalism as the profession for me. But after a two-year detour into a government tech job, I desperately missed the excitement and sense of shared purpose of a newsroom — and my passion for politics and elections wouldn’t go away. So I made a gamble, parlayed my Daily Sun sports clips into a junior reporter job offer at Congressional Quarterly, took a pay cut, alarmed my father and began nearly a decade covering Capitol Hill during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Along the way, I made other gambles: quitting good journalism jobs in Washington to go overseas with my wife, first as an Associated Press stringer and journalism teacher in Zambia, and then as freelancer for the Washington Post in Myanmar. Both times I wasn't remotely sure whether there was a career for me on the other side — and in both cases, I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world.
At POLITICO, where I now work as Deputy Editor in Chief and help guide a global newsroom of more than 600 journalists, my Sun experience has shaped the way I lead. Starting as POLITICO’s first tax editor, I was quickly drawn to entrepreneurial roles — launching newsletters, and then teams and eventually becoming intimately involved in helping build POLITICO into a strong and durable transatlantic publication — particularly in the growth of our successful state capital operations in California, New York, Florida and New Jersey. I’ve had the great fortune to direct coverage of state politics, Congress and federal policymaking — and often draw on my editing experience at the Sun, where I got my first taste of motivating and editing reporters who might be a little too precious about the copy they’d filed. Managing a publication in this era requires a strong stomach and the ability to pivot and think on your feet. Above all, it means operating in the chaos of a newsroom while keeping your cool — something those late nights in downtown Ithaca taught me in spades.
In ways I never anticipated, the Sun prepared me not just for journalism, but for the choices and skills my my career has demanded since.
Joseph Schatz '98
Assistant Sports Editor
The Cornell Daily Sun is interested in publishing a broad and diverse set of content from the Cornell and greater Ithaca community. We want to hear what you have to say about this topic or any of our pieces. Here are some guidelines on how to submit. And here’s our email: associate-editor@cornellsun.com.
