My name is James Parziale, an award-winning editor, writer, content maven and professor. But before we deep-dive into all that, let me tell you a story that will give you a glance at who I am.

In the wee morning hours of June 17, 2008, I was the last person manning the sports desk at New York Daily News on what was otherwise a ho-hum night. The print editors usually wrapped up at around 2:30 a.m. to make sure there wasn’t a re-plate needed, so from then until around 3:30 a.m., I closed up the online operation with an overnight homepage editor.

It was just two of us sitting on opposite sides of a newsroom that was now put to bed, much like the rest of the city.

Shortly after 3 a.m., the main sports desk main phone rang – which it never did at that hour – and was positioned for the senior slot editor to be able to answer it. Somewhat curious, I stood up and hustled around a set of desks to get to it, but before I could answer, the caller had hung up. I went back to my desk, sat down and continued to proof the site, as I got ready to head out.

But then it happened again – the phone cut through the silence of the newsroom, and this time I didn’t think, I just reacted. I leapt over the desk (literally), grabbed the phone and said “Hello, Daily News Sports department. This is James.”

It was the sports editor for the paper, Leon Carter, calling to tell me the Mets had fired manager Willie Randolph, and that Adam Rubin was going to file a short story, and he needed to know where to send it. I gave him my email and phone numbers, and said I’d be waiting for his call. I hung up, yelled across the newsroom to my colleague (who didn’t believe me at first) that “Willie Randolph just got canned,” and we needed to get something on the site.

The urgency of the matter was two-fold: we had the story before anyone else and our CMS had a weird flaw at the time where it shut down from 4 to 5 a.m. to publish. So from 3:30 to roughly 3:58, I worked to get our initial story up, with art and a banner, and made sure we were the first ones to have it.

The two of us stayed through the one-hour dead zone, prepping more content to get live on the site once it came back online. We waited for the morning to crew to roll in, and once it was all said and done, I probably got home at around 6 a.m. that morning.

All because I jumped over a desk to answer a phone call to make sure we were first in an era before news broke on Twitter.

That’s one of many anecdotes from a career that’s taken me to the Queens Tribune, Daily News, The Daily, MSN, FOX Sports and now back to MSN, once again. I’ve covered every kind of level of sports from high school to pros, and worked through terrorist attacks and presidential elections. It’s been a wild ride, and I’m more than happy to tell you more about it and myself.

If you want to get to know me even better, here’s a personal story I like sharing with people. I look forward to what’s next. If you’d like to contact me, please feel free to use the form below. Thanks for stopping by!