BALDWINSVILLE — Mike Cutillo remembers exactly when he caught the journalism bug: Mr. McKee’s seventh-grade English class at Durgee Junior High School.
“We could write anything we wanted to, but it had to be in the style of a Greek myth,” Cutillo recalled.
Cutillo penned a fantasy football tale of the Minnesota Vikings facing off against the Dallas Cowboys. Mr. McKee returned the paper with the comment, “You should think about becoming a sports writer.”
That encouragement from Mr. McKee spurred Cutillo onto a four-decade career path that has culminated in his recent promotion to publisher of the Finger Lakes Times in Geneva.
The Messenger caught up with Cutillo to find out how he went from writing for Baker High School’s Balderdash and Ballyhoo and covering soccer and basketball for the Messenger to taking the helm at an award-winning daily newspaper.
Cutillo and his three sisters grew up on Syracuse Street near St. Mary’s in the village of Baldwinsville and later moved to Connell Terrace. He recorded his fond memories of growing up in an Italian American family in his 2019 book, “George Washing Machine, Portables & Submarine Races: My Italian-American Life.”
Growing up, Cutillo played basketball under the tutelage of Dick Clarke, also a veteran journalist and now the mayor of Baldwinsville.
“He was my booster basketball coach when I was like 10 years old,” Cutillo said.
Cutillo graduated from Baker in 1978 and went on to study journalism at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, where he played soccer. He interned for the Syracuse Herald Journal and worked part-time in the sports department of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle before graduating in 1982.
“We graduated on a Sunday and I already had a job lined up at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle,” Cutillo said. “I was supposed to start on a Monday but I asked if I could start on Tuesday.”
Cutillo’s career began at an exciting time for print journalism. Media juggernaut Gannett, owner of the D&C, was starting a new venture.
“USA Today was just starting up in ’82. A lot of folks from the D&C newsroom were going down to Washington to help,” he said.
The D&C assigned Cutillo to its Wayne County bureau.
“It was a really cool job because as a bureau reporter you covered everything from crime scenes to school board meetings,” he said. “I wanted to get a solid background in news reporting. … I loved sports, but I thought there was more opportunity to climb the ladder in news.”
That solid background paid off when the Finger Lakes Times offered Cutillo a job in 1984. He became sports editor in 1990 and was named news editor in the late ‘90s.
Cutillo’s first act with the Finger Lakes Times ended in 2005 when the paper was bought out. The new owners cut 20 positions. After spending “a month or so of soul searching,” Cutillo accepted an offer from the Canandaigua Daily Messenger to become the sports editor.
In 2010, new management at the Finger Lakes Times asked Cutillo if he would consider coming back. He agreed and returned to his job as news editor for a year before he was named executive editor. When the most recent publisher, Mark Lukas, moved on to another position in the paper’s parent company, Cutillo decided to throw his hat into the ring.
“I’m still 95% editor, 5% publisher. I’ve got to learn the advertising side of things, the revenue side of things,” he said of the transition to his new responsibilities. “The last two publishers that I’ve worked for here have put the paper on a great course, especially during turbulent times. Coming up from the editorial side, I’d like to think I have an idea of what people like to read.”
To borrow from Mark Twain, the report of the death of newspapers is an exaggeration, according to Cutillo.
“It is a definite challenge, but I think especially at a community paper like we are there will be a need for storytelling for years to come,” he said. “They’re not dying. They’re changing, they’re adapting. Those that don’t are dying.”
On his days off, Cutillo enjoys cooking, making wine, playing golf — “I used to play basketball but my knees said, ‘You better stop that’” — and reading. “That’s something I got from my mom, who was a voracious reader,” he said. Cutillo remains a Syracuse University fan and is active in his local Sons of Italy Lodge.
The Messenger asked Cutillo about his take on Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh’s proposal to remove the Christopher Columbus statue and revamp Columbus Circle into Heritage Park to celebrate the contributions of all Americans — Indigenous, Black, Italian and otherwise — to local history and culture. He said the issue is symbolic of how divided Americans have become on many topics.
“I understand both sides of it. I’m not real big on rewriting history and tearing statues down even if they weren’t real great [people],” he said. “[Indigenous] people were already there; they weren’t discovered.”
Cutillo said the Sons of Italy Lodge used to host a Columbus Day dinner dance, but Italian Americans can find joy in their heritage, food, family and culture without statues.
“You don’t need Columbus necessarily to celebrate those things,” he said.
What Cutillo misses most about the place he grew up are the people and the “friendly, laid-back” vibe of B’ville. His father moved from Baldwinsville to Geneva to live with Cutillo two years ago, but he still has relatives in the area.
To read Cutillo’s work, visit fltimes.com or find his memoir on Amazon.
