Writing the Next Chapter: Steve Adubato '80

For Emmy Award-winning anchor, media analyst, columnist, best-selling author and university professor Steve Adubato ’80, Montclair State is the place where he learned how to lose.

During his junior year, he narrowly lost the election for the SGA presidency. “Losing sucked. It absolutely sucked. But it taught me how to lose,” he recalls. “It taught me I had choices: I could quit, complain or, more important, stay in the game and move forward and write my next chapter.”

Adubato has written many new chapters since then. At age 25, he launched his campaign for the New Jersey State Legislature from the steps of Montclair State’s student center. “I announced that way by design,” he admits. University students were active in his campaign, helping him to become the youngest person ever to be elected to the New Jersey State Legislature.

After losing his bid for a second term, he earned a doctorate in media and communication at Rutgers University and joined the Rutgers faculty. “That’s when my career really started,” he says. “Ironically, the best thing that happened to my professional life was losing that election and deciding to pursue a career in media and academia.”

Today, Adubato is an anchor on PBS stations such as WNET and NJTV. As a media and communication expert, he has appeared on TODAY, CNN, FOX News and other news programs.

His production company, CAUCUS Educational Corp., partners with WNET and NJTV to produce a range of programs for PBS stations, some of which have been produced at the University’s state-of-the-art DuMont Television Center.

He writes a Star-Ledger column and has penned four best-selling nonfiction books. “If I hadn’t written 500 words a week for The Montclarion, I would not have had the training and discipline to write professionally,” he says. Currently a distinguished university lecturer at New York University and New Jersey Institute of Technology, he has also taught at Montclair State. His courses focus on media, communication and leadership.

“In many ways, Montclair State undergraduates are the finest students I’ve ever had. The University has trained and prepared some of the finest producers in the industry,” he notes. “Some of the best producers I’ve recruited have been Montclair State graduates.”

For Adubato, Montclair State is still about people. “Montclair State is a family,” he explains. “Whenever I go back, I feel connected.”