Peter Caty/The Mirror
When he was younger, Byron Pitts was told that he was functionally illiterate and mentally retarded. Once he made it into college, a professor told him he was a waste of time and should drop out.
Today, Pitts is chief national correspondent for CBS Evening News and is an Emmy award-winning journalist.
In a lecture at Fairfield University last Tuesday night, Pitts discussed how this success would have been impossible if people in his life hadn’t “stepped out on nothing” for him. These people, both strangers and his own mother, made a difference in Pitts’s life and brought him to his current position.
When he was told he was mentally retarded, his mother challenged the doctors and told them they were wrong. Though she had no formal education, she stood up for her son and gave him confidence to pursue his education.
In college, a first year professor who, according to Pitts, had absolutely no reason to talk to him, changed his mind. She comforted him and talked him out of dropping out of college. “She saved my life,” Pitts said.
Despite these setbacks, Pitts graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a bachelor’s in journalism and speech communication. After, he went on to work as a reporter for various television stations. He began as a sports anchor for WNCT-TV in North Carolina and then became a military reporter for WAVY-TV in Virginia. Eventually, Pitts joined CBS News from WSB-TV Atlanta and worked in both Miami and Atlanta before moving to New York in 2001.
Since then Pitts has had great success in the reporting field. He won a national Emmy award for his coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks and has covered other major news stories such as Hurricane Katrina, the war in Afghanistan, and the Florida presidential election. In total, Pitts has received four Associated Press Awards and six regional Emmy Awards. He is also the author of Step Out on Nothing, an autobiography tracing his “rags to riches” story.
Pitts said he saw all the “stumbling blocks [in his life] as stepping stones.” Within each struggle he has faced, someone has come into his life and made a difference. According to him, there is great power in words — so much power that one word can lift a spirit.
In college these words were thanks to his roommate and still friend Peter. Everyday Peter gave Pitts a new word to spell, define, and use in a sentence. For four years Pitts and Peter followed this routine, building Pitts’s vocabulary and shaping him into the articulate speaker he is today.
Audience members were able to connect with Pitts and react to his success story. Wanda Szarek ’11 felt that Pitts was a “great intelligent speaker who was brave to touch upon his troubled experiences.”
Daniella Scopino ’13 agreed, saying, “His stories made him seem humble. I didn’t think he would be like that since he’s somewhat of a celebrity in the news world.”
Indeed Pitts joked, “People think I’m all that and a bowl of chips because of my fancy shoes.” Yet inside Pitts is still the young boy who believes in hard work, optimism, and making a difference.
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