By Steve Sears

PIX11 News New Jersey correspondent, Katie Corrado, recalled the phone call.

She said, “One evening the phone rang, and my mom picked it up, and she was just stunned because, of course, you recognize that voice right away: ‘Is Katie there?’ And my mom said, “It is John Sterling on the phone for you!”

By the time Corrado was 13 years old in 2004, she had been a lifelong New York Yankees fan. And Sterling, the team’s play-by-play announcer from 1989 – 2024 who passed away on May 4th of this year, was perhaps just as well-known on-air as Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, and other Bronx ballyard greats of the past three decades that were on the diamond.

Corrado had a dream 22 years ago, and that gave birth to an idea. She wanted to go into Broadcast Journalism and knew exactly who to contact. 

“I said, ‘I’m just going to write a letter to John Sterling, because I listen to him on the radio, and I’m going to ask him for some advice, because I know I want to do this thing, and I have no idea where to start.’”

Sterling did not respond by writing back to Corrado but called her instead.

Corrado said, “I remember my mom shaking, like it was not real. He (Sterling) was so wonderful and so kind, said he got my letter, and thanked me for sending it.”

And Sterling would do much better than just dialing the Corrado home number. He invited the family to historic Yankee Stadium to watch a game, tour the press box, and show them around. 

“He made good on it,” Corrado said, “and I sat down, interviewed, and wrote an article about him – because at the time I was also volunteering at the Yogi Berra Museum for their student newsletter – and he brought my family and I around the press area.” 

The Corrado family also met the late Bob Shepherd, and her little brother, Michael, got to play the organ neighboring the late Public Address Announcer’s booth.

“He took me seriously,” Corrado said of Sterling. “He was so complimentary and so generous with his time.”

Corrado would revisit Sterling at the Stadium in 2017. “And he remembered me,” she said. “I said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to come by and say hi and tell you I am doing this journalism thing.’ He was so wonderful.”

Corrado, a true Jersey girl, has been with PIX11 News since 2018, and has been its Garden State correspondent since 2024. She can be seen and heard weekdays on the 4, 5, and 6 p.m. broadcasts.

She said, “My first six years with PIX11 I was covering everything, but I was based in Manhattan and was living in Manhattan. And then when the opportunity came up for me to take over the Jersey beat, it was such a no brainer. It feels like I have real ownership of it, and I take a lot of pride in that. I feel like, wherever I go around the state, it is like I had been here when I was a little kid, or I have a friend from this town, or there are just so many personal connections that I can associate with my stories.”

“I absolutely love having ownership of this beat.”

How much more “NJ Starz” can you get?

Corrado, now 36, grew up in Essex County’s Cedar Grove. She said, “My parents (Tony and Margaret) still live in the same house that I grew up in. I lived in Cedar Grove until I went off to college. It is a small town where you know who owns the barber shop and the sandwich place, and you know the cashiers at the grocery store. It was a fantastic town to grow up in. I loved the schools, I loved my teachers, and I had great friends.”

Corrado initially attended North End School where her mom served as a lunch aide. She said, “I was a member of the last graduating sixth grade class of North End school. Then I went over to what was the brand new Memorial Middle School, was in the first eighth grade graduating class of that school, and then I went to Cedar Grove High School.” 

Corrado, Class of 2008, was President of National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, and Key Club, Vice-President of the Student Council, owner of a 4.0 GPA, and was named graduation speaker.

Corrado said. “There was no journalism class at Cedar Grove High School, so there was nobody who per se said you have an aptitude for this (broadcast journalism) specifically, and you should do it, but all of my teachers were just so genuinely encouraging.” She recognized English teacher, Steve DeStefano, AP English instructor, Michelle Zanella, and Social Studies teachers, Steve Gallagher and Chris Canella. “I can say across the board I always had fantastic teachers.”

After high school, Corrado headed to New York City to study and major in Communications and Media Studies at Fordham University. She enjoyed her time there immensely.

She said, “I knew from the time I stepped foot on campus for my college visit that was where I wanted to go. And frankly, I only wanted to apply to Fordham, but my guidance counselor said, ‘You cannot do that. You have to apply to more schools.’ But I was so certain that I wanted to go to Fordham, I did early action for it. I felt like the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx was the best of both worlds. You had an actual campus – you had grass, and you had buildings – but it was also right in the city, so when you stepped off campus, you were in another world, and it was a very different world than Cedar Grove, New Jersey. You learn street smarts very quickly. Some of the best education I got was outside of the campus gates. I also think that going to school in the city prepared me for being a reporter in the city.”

Fordham University Assistant Professor of Communications and Media Studies, Dr. Beth Noble, was instrumental in Corrado’s career.

Corrado said, “She was fantastic. At one point in college, when I was in the process of sending demo reels across the country, one of my first offers came in from North Dakota, and I remember going to her and saying, ‘Oh my gosh; I don’t want to work in North Dakota. What do I do? Maybe I am not cut out for this. Maybe I should just abandon ship, go into PR, and I can stay right here in the tri-state.’” 

Dr. Noble halted Corrado and said, “You have what it takes to be a journalist, and I strongly urge you to not go into PR.” 

“When she said that to me,” Corrado said, “I took it to heart, and I said to myself, ‘You know what? If she believes in me’ – and she was a correspondent at CBS News for years – ‘then I’ve got something here, and I’m going to go with it.’ I still talk to her and just saw her recently. She is phenomenal.”

After college, Corrado was from 2012 – 2014 a news anchor and reporter at the NBC/CBS station in Syracuse, and thereafter from 2014 – 2018 for the FOX TV station in Hartford, Connecticut.

Those years of covering a variety of news stories were extremely valuable. Corrado said, “You make your mistakes in those smaller markets, and you learn what to do when you are thrown onto a breaking news scene and told that you have to go live immediately. You learn what feels safe and what does not. That was a huge learning curve for me in Syracuse, just learning some situations; if you do not feel safe going into them, listen to your gut. That was a huge lesson to learn before New York. It was six years and hundreds of live shots and news, and you get the repetition down and you start to become comfortable.”

Corrado during her career has interviewed former President Bill Clinton, actor Tom Cruise, singer Alicia Keys, and has also covered events like Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

She said, “I loved the parade since I was a little kid and covering it in person was very cool. What made it extra special was that, at the time, my (future) husband was still in the business as a reporter, and we were doing live shots next to each other. We went from the parade to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner that year.”

But there have also been the more emotional, tougher assignments. Corrado said, “There are a few times I have had to step away and collect myself on stories, but they have been thankfully few and far between. I can say that the hardest story I ever did was an interview with a Sandy Hook father who lost his son in the 2012 shooting. We both cried. It was tough.”

Corrado’s dream assignment is to interview pop singer, Taylor Swift. “This probably sounds unoriginal – because I imagine a lot of people would kill to interview her – but she truly is my dream assignment,” she said. “She grants very few interviews, so I must emphasize the ‘dream’ part of the assignment. But I am a huge ‘Swiftie,’ and I have been for probably 15 years. Her music has been the soundtrack to so many pivotal times in my life. It can make me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. I am in awe of her talent and ingenuity and would love to interview her.”

Corrado since 2023 has been married to Renewable Energy World journalist, Paul Gerke. The couple resides in Morris County with their seven-month-old daughter, Gemma, and a mini goldendoodle, Theo.

You can tell it in her voice. Katie Corrado, with a young family and a wonderful career, is enjoying life. 

She said, “I was so focused on my career in my 20s and getting back to New York, and I feel like right now my focus is on my daughter, and career-wise I am in a pretty darn good place. If I covered New Jersey news for the rest of my career, I would be so happy. There is no other area that I would rather cover. My goals are really focused on expanding the roots and the connections that I already have, and I want to be that reporter who has an insane institutional knowledge of New Jersey, knows all the playmakers, and every town. My goal is just to become more entrenched and have a broader and deeper understanding of the state.”