alumni news
Family ties drew Emmy-winning reporter JD Conte, BSJ ’23, to Suffolk and opened his eyes to a world bigger than he’d imagined. Today, Conte is a multimedia journalist at KLTV 7 in Tyler, Texas, covering extraordinary stories about ordinary people, reshaping his community in the process.
In November 2025, Conte and his colleagues earned a Lone Star Emmy for reporting on a massive flood that impacted the eastern Texas city, located about 90 minutes from Dallas. Out in the field, Conte earned the trust of families whose livelihoods had been destroyed. The coverage held the city to account for critical repairs and underscored the value of community-based reporting.
“That’s why local journalism is so important: It affects the lives of everyday people,” says Conte, who has been named one of Suffolk’s 2026 10 Under 10 alumni honorees.
Personal connections have always anchored Conte’s life. He arrived at Suffolk to be near family in East Boston. With views of the State House from Smith Hall, his freshman dorm, he initially thought about becoming a prosecutor.
A meeting with Suffolk Journal editor Haley Clegg, BS ’20, set him on a different path. With her encouragement, he began writing for the paper and learned how to recognize a good story. During his junior year, while Conte was getting a trim at Boston Barber & Tattoo Co., police cruisers peeled past. He bolted outside and spotted classmate Will Woodring, BS ’24, the Journal’s news editor, racing toward a pandemic protest at the State House. Conte joined the coverage.
“It was a first-breaking-news scenario, picked up by local TV stations,” he recalls. His grandmother, at home in East Boston, even saw him on television—the most meaningful accolade of all.
“There was no way she should’ve been able to recognize who I was, but she saw me for who I was becoming,” Conte says. “That was the moment that I knew what I wanted to do.”
Conte also became a student reporter for NECN’s partnership segment, “Suffolk in the City.” And as a senior, he helped run the Jumbotron at TD Garden, an internship facilitated by his mentor, Jerry Glendye at Suffolk’s Studio 73.
“I learned pretty much everything about TV production from him,” says Conte. “On the Jumbotron, I was making fans’ dreams come true every night, and also getting connections with all the journalists I grew up watching.”
Graduating with a dual degree in journalism and political science, Conte impulsively bought a plane ticket to Tyler, Texas, motivated by the same instinct that propelled him out the barbershop door. He hoped to land a TV job in a new environment.
Conte knew nobody miles from home, which was precisely the point. His courage and work ethic earned him an offer from KLTV as a multimedia journalist. “The news director said I was the only kid he’d ever hired from Boston,” Conte laughs.
But with little money and no connections, loneliness crept in. His father suggested he visit a church. “I walked in on Easter Sunday. By the third song, I’m just bawling my eyes out,” Conte recalls. That community offered rootedness that deepened his connection to civic stories.
Each day, Conte identifies a lead, reports it in the field, shoots and edits footage, and writes the script—then plans the next day’s coverage. Being embedded in the community, he found, was the difference between surface coverage and meaningful storytelling.
Conte isn’t motivated by headlines or awards. He’s inspired by people, including a local lineman, Dakota Hutson, who lost both his arms after touching a live transformer. “He said that he was glad it happened,” Conte marvels, “because now he’s at home every night with his kids, when he never was before. The way that man just went about his life profoundly changed me as a person.”
Not every story is thrilling. Some nights mean long hours at city council meetings. That’s when Conte recalls lessons learned at Suffolk.
“My journalism professor Charlie St. Amand, BSJ ’86, taught me the importance of boots-on-the-ground journalism,” Conte says. “I’d think to myself, ‘Charlie would be here,’ as a local reporter who cared about his people.” —Kara Baskin
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spring 2026
Photograph courtesty KLTV 7
