Paul Vitello

Biography

Paul Vitello is an award-winning journalist who was a popular Newsday columnist for more than 20 years and for 10 years was a staff reporter at The New York Times. Before arriving at Newsday in 1981, he worked as a reporter in Kansas City, Mo., Chicago and in Rome, where he covered the Vatican in 1979 for Religious News Service. At Newsday and The Times, he covered world and national events, three presidential election campaigns, religious trends in the American heartland and a wide array of public policy issues. His columns received the Meyer Berger Award from Columbia University, the American Society of News Editors’ commentary award and were named by the Associated Press as the best newspaper column of the year in New York three times. His work was featured in “Best Newspaper Writing 2001,” published by ASNE. He shared in Newsday’s Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800. Raised in Manhattan, he received a bachelor’s degree in 1972 from Trinity College in Hartford. He is married to Carol Polsky, a Newsday reporter.

Research Interest

Mass Communication and Journalism