SYRACUSE -- After more than a dozen years at NewsChannel 9 (WSYR-TV), Roger Mirabito is moving onto a new job in the public relations field. And producer Kristy Smorol at CNY Central (WSTM/WTVH/WSTQ-LP) is making a similar move after seven years with the station, according to the Syracuse Press Club.
On the club's website today, it is announced that Mirabito has been named communications manager at Onondaga Community College. For most of his time at channel 9, Mirabito was the station's assignment editor. The sudden exit of longtime news director Jim Tortora last year resulted in Mirabito becoming interim news director, and eventually he was named assistant news director.
Prior to joining channel 9, Mirabito was a producer and assignment editor at WTVH during the late 1990s, after completing a stint as a reporter and anchor at Watertown's WWNY-TV. Longtime CNYRadio.com readers may recall spotting Mirabito in a 1985 photo of the WSYR radio news team, which we featured as a Picture of the Week last year.
Mirabito's last day at NewsChannel 9 will be June 6.
The Syracuse Press Club also says CNY Central producer Kristy Smorol has accepted an offer to become communications manager for the Syracuse office of the American Heart Association.
The move will wrap-up a seven-year run on James Street, where the Cicero native and Newhouse grad was originally hired right out of an internship to produce "Today in Central New York" for NBC 3. She later moved to the 11pm newscast, and currently produces the station's 5pm newscast.
SPC President Lou Gulino notes Smorol's shows earned two consecutive "Best Newscast" awards from the club. Having worked with both Mirabito and Smorol, he says they'll be "sorely missed by their stations."