Lance Lysowski

• Producing award-winning coverage of the Buffalo Sabres and National Hockey League for The Buffalo News' print and online products.

• Attending every home game and most road games to provide our audience with breaking news, live event coverage, compelling feature stories and enterprise journalism.

• Supplementing our coverage, and growing our audience, through multimedia reporting. For example, Facebook Live broadcasts to engage with current or potential subscribers; standup video reporting to provide analysis on news or live events; podcasting; and creating video to accompany a feature or enterprise story online.

• Developing and maintaining a professional relationship with a wide array of sources, including managers, scouts, coaches, players, team support staff and agents.

• Viewed as an expert in the market and consistently using trusted sources to break news before the competition.
• Studying audience data to build a weekly plan on which stories to tell and when to publish them on the website.

• Representing The Buffalo News through regular radio appearances and television guest spots, including segments on NHL Network.

• Create a budget and write most of the copy for our annual NHL season preview special section.

• Part of a five-person reporting team that won first place for special projects (Division B) in the 2021 Associated Press Sports Editors awards contest.

• Place Top 5 in Beat Reporting (Division B) in the 2023 APSE awards contest.

• First place, Live Sports Coverage, Journalists Association of New York.

• Several awards of distinction from The New York News Publishers Association.

• Provided daily coverage of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Major League Baseball for a subscriber-based website and mobile application that reportedly had 38,000 subscribers.

• Leveraged clubhouse access, as well as the absence of a print deadline, to detail athletes' stories and provide insight behind on-field and off-the-field trends.

• Wrote timely and deeply-reported stories throughout the offseason, six weeks of spring training and 162-game regular season.

• Developed a deeper understanding of how to run a professional beat in a competitive market and how to make my coverage standout among the rest.

• Represented the website through in-house multimedia platforms — including a daily on-camera show and weekly podcasts — and appearances on Pittsburgh's NBC affiliate, WPXI.

• Used WordPress to help manage the website and mobile application.

• Engaged with subscribers daily through the website's comments section.

• Supplemented my reporting with video from inside the clubhouse, on the field or one-on-one conversations with sources.

• Learned from our owner, Dejan Kovacevic, how to run an independent outlet and the importance of growing an maintaining a strong subscribe base.

• Used access gained by traveling to cover the University of Pittsburgh's football and men's basketball programs to provide readers with daily news coverage, in-depth features and enterprise.

• Assisted with the website's coverage of the Penguins, Pirates and Steelers, including time at NFL training camp in Latrobe, Pa. Learned from the respected, dedicated reporters covering those beats for the company.

• Found creative ways to tell stories on a beat in which access was restricted.

• Traveled across North America to attend live events, including the College Football Awards Show in Atlanta, and helped our Pitt coverage standout in a market that had several reporters at each practice and game.

• Coordinated coverage of high school athletics across 22 school districts for a daily newspaper with a print circulation of 33,863.

• Completed projects with multimedia elements, including the annual 65-page preseason football tabloid, and worked with our sports editor, Chris Dugan, to create a weekly video podcast about local high school football.

• Developed trusted sources and professional relationships across three counties to find stories that were important to our readers.

• Answered phones in the newsroom, used InDesign to put together our sports agate page and, along with a metro reporter, taught a group of high school students how to report and write news stories.

• Master of ceremonies at our annual awards banquet for high school student athletes and coaches.

• Keystone Press Awards - Second Place for Sports Beat Reporting (Division III)