From Newhouse to the White House, ABC News Radio’s National Correspondent Steven Portnoy brings hard-hitting news straight to your house. He learned from some of the best in the industry and now has joined their ranks, passing on what he’s learned to the next generation.
“One of the great things that I love doing is mentoring young people. I speak to college students as often as I can. I try to encourage and foster the growth of young reporters here at ABC,” Portnoy told Barrett News Media over a Zoom call.
Long before he attended Syracuse, Portnoy had a calling to be in the industry. “I remember from my earliest days as a four-year-old kid, my dad would listen to Howard Stern on WNBC Radio. He would make recordings that I now know to be airchecks of Howard Stern and would listen to them later. And through osmosis, I had, as a very young boy, a deep appreciation for the impact that radio had in our home.”
By the time he was in high school, the radio journalist was already working in the industry. “I was maybe 16 and it was just a couple of days a week in the summer but they had me writing. I remember pulling material from our affiliate feed service called News Call. And I was able to go to the New Jersey State Capitol in Trenton on stories and shadow a reporter. It was an extraordinary opportunity for me as a young high school student to see a local, community-focused radio station.”
He chose ‘The Orange’ because of the Newhouse program but he had no time for on campus antics. While attending school, Steven Portnoy worked at three local stations, the ABC-TV affiliate, the NBC-TV affiliate, and WSYR Radio, where he interned for his now colleague and dear friend, Aaron Katersky.
“I was working 32 hours a week when I was in college. I don’t know how I graduated, but I did, and by the time I did, I’d already interned twice at ABC News here in Washington in the White House unit.”
The D.C. Bureau is where Steven Portnoy has made his industry home and broken some big news, including being on the air for eight hours straight with CBS Radio on January 6, 2021.
“We knew that something was terribly wrong and that the rioters had breached the building. And so the decision was made for me to go on the air in a work-from-home environment.”
While Portnoy described what he was seeing from home, “We aired the sound of the gunshot that was fired outside the House chamber. We later knew it as the shot that killed Ashli Babbitt. It was a painful moment for me as someone who had spent time reporting from Capitol Hill and had decided to make it my career in Washington to see the Capitol being desecrated and overtaken in those moments. It was, really, extremely chilling. It was one of those moments where I felt deeply how important it was to be communicating in real-time to radio listeners who couldn’t themselves see what was happening.”
Today, Steven Portnoy is back with ABC and most recently was a part of their live coverage of the Supreme Court Decision in Trump vs. U.S. “One of the most exciting aspects of my job is I get to help radio listeners understand the most esoteric and complicated decisions of the Supreme Court that have come in some time. Pouring through the opinion and looking for the key words and phrases in Roberts’ writing to explain to the public exactly what it means at first glance.”
It’s a skill the veteran journalist has learned over time. He notes there are key words and phrases that he looks for before translating the opinions into ‘practical realities.’
“I immediately go to the very last page of the majority opinion, because an opinion will most often end with a declarative paragraph. That really gets to the nut of what the court is saying. And most often, when you see a quote that’s pulled quickly out of a Supreme Court opinion, it comes from that very last paragraph before the line. ‘It is so ordered.’ Then we can read from the dissent.”
While everyone is hoping this year’s election will be more subdued than in 2020, Steven Portnoy believes it’s extremely important to check facts, and bring new developments to light.
“For all of us to decide who we want to be represented by and to be a part of that process, helping the people understand who their options are is the reason I wanted to go into journalism. Because it’s not for me to decide for the audience who should be the next President. I’m here to help facilitate this self-governing country govern itself.”
It is this fundamental belief that Portnoy hopes to pass on to the next generation of reporters. “One of the great things about our new era is that in our pockets, we have these devices that allow us to be our own photographers, broadcasters, editors, [and] publishers. That means that we no longer have to worry about whether there’s an opportunity at a local radio station. We can now all do it ourselves, which is very exciting.
“But it also means that the opportunities to hone that craft and learn from experienced people is harder to come by. And that is something I’m a bit concerned about because I was so lucky to learn from the greats. And I just hope that young people are able to get in touch with people who have experience.”
One other nugget of advice Steven Portnoy offered was to work hard.
“When I was at WMAL, in my last year, I freelanced for ABC, and so I would work morning drive from 4:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon, and then head downtown to the ABC News bureau and work a freelance shift from 1 PM until 7 PM at the network. That’s a pretty long day. I was 25, I had a lot of energy, [and was] eager to do it. I also made a lot of money doing it. But that was the lesson: being willing to put myself out there and work really hard. It made opportunities possible for me.
“I also believe in offering people opportunities. I’m not suggesting everyone should be working a 16-hour day. I’m a believer in the rights and responsibilities that employers have to their people. But you have to be willing to demonstrate your worth and value to an employer and sometimes that means working hard to demonstrate your value.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
