Weaving from finance classes, to a job on Wall Street, to ultimately following his passion in an entirely new industry, Northeastern University graduate Jason Mastrodonato has traveled an unconventional path to become a sports columnist for the Boston Herald.
Mastrodonato, 31, came to Northeastern from Rochester, NY to study business, but, while he did graduate with a degree in finance and management, it was an experience during a paid internship that changed his life trajectory. Ten years later, he studies box scores instead of balance sheets. Shedding light on his unorthodox beginnings, the sports columnist sat down with us to discuss what it takes to become a sports journalist in today’s rapidly transforming media landscape.
Just get going
Enamored with the Red Sox, Mastrodonato arrived at Northeastern with business on his mind but Yawkey Way in his heart. Bored with his co-op job on Wall Street during his junior year, he began researching and writing about fantasy baseball during the work day, sending articles to various sites to see if he could get published.
“It didn’t really go anywhere,” he says. “I said screw it. I’m going to make my own site. I got back to Northeastern and took journalism 101. It was a life changing course for me.”
No path? Get creative
Mastrodonato reached out to the Huntington News to ask if there was a need for sports writers, and started filling a gap with the Northeastern women’s hockey team. In the midst of his hockey coverage and statistics assignments, he found the time to submit an application to the Globe that included samples from his fantasy baseball website, his work at the Huntington News, and possibly most importantly, a recommendation from his Journalism 101 professor Carlene Hempel.
“Carlene gave me a lot of confidence,” he said. “She wrote a letter and told me if I opened it she would lose all trust in me. I still don’t know what she said.”
He was offered the internship.
“It was one of the most exciting days of my life,” he says. “I remember exactly what I was wearing, where I was, and who I was with. It was a validating moment. I was thinking, ‘I might really be able to do this.’”
Mastrodonato also vividly remembers his first week on the job— especially the nerves.
“I was legitimately shaking in the morning,” he says. “I had no idea what I was doing. The editor basically said, ‘Go find a story. Go.’”
Learn on the job
While the situation seemed daunting, it provided him with invaluable lessons: adapt on the fly, be resourceful, and meet commitments and deadlines. In the end, he realizes experience was teaching him some of the most critical skills required of a journalist.
“Journalism is doing,” he says. “It’s not like accounting where there are a set of rules and a list of here is how you do the job. You learn on the job. You just figure it out.”
Be open to change
A decade into his career, Mastrodonato is concerned about what lies ahead for sports journalism, especially with venture capitalism and hedge funds playing a more active role in the ownership and strategic direction of both online and publications. Sports Illustrated, once a gold standard of sports journalism, laid off half its staff after being acquired by Authentic Brands Group, opening up questions on the future business model of sports reporting.
“Obviously no one really has the answer,” he said. “The Athletic has had a lot of success: Low cost, subscription-based. But not everyone has $20 million in venture capital money coming in” referring to the millions of dollars pouring in from Silicon Valley to the upstart online publication.
Mastrodonato also pointed to the fact that while media outlets are turning to subscription services, almost 50% of Americans say they get their news from Facebook, where the stories are often unvetted, accompanied by paid advertisements, and posted whether the information is true or not.
“People have an expectation to get news for free,” he says. “So why go to the Globe or the New York Times? Until people realize [that] what they are getting is crap, it is going to be difficult for us as a business.”
Be willing to push back
Mastrodonato is also concerned about where the art—not just the business—of journalism is headed. He thinks the tough questions are not getting asked as much, which has resulted in some media outlets and writers becoming, in effect, extensions of teams’ public relations departments.
“I get pissed reading so many young writers—and it’s not their fault, I’m not blaming them—taking whatever the coach says and going with it,” he says. “The coach said it so it must be true. You end up with stories that aren’t different from press releases. We are losing so many writers that have experience because we are going younger and cheaper. There’s going to be a price to pay.”
Stay true to yourself
While he finds himself in a volatile industry working for a media outlet that has seen its print circulation drop by almost 35% in the last five years and filed for bankruptcy in 2017 before being acquired in 2018, Mastrodonato continues to fight through the challenges. He has leaned into the situation, expanding beyond writing to include an active presence on social media and appearances on television and sports radio. He has stayed true to his values and takes pride in “always erring on the side of doing the right thing,” and his role has enabled him to fulfill his dream of working for the Red Sox, albeit as a sports reporter rather than the general manager.
And what if he had stayed with finance?
“I’d probably have ended up in a career I didn’t love, searching for something more meaningful to give my life energy,” he says. “For me I had to do it. It was in my heart.”
