Jay Warren DeDapper is the co-founder and CEO of Buzztala, an ad-tech company located in New York City and a former television journalist.
Journalism career
DeDapper's career in broadcast journalism began with a stint as a disc jockey on his high school radio station WWPT in Westport, CT. In college at the University of California at Santa BarbaraI he studied communications and worked both as a DJ and news announcer and reporter on KCSB-FM. Around this time the late night news programNBC News Overnight launched and DeDapper was inspired by the work of anchors Linda Ellerbee, Lloyd Dobyns, and later Bill Schechner. The show's conversational narrative style and storytelling led him decide on a career in television journalism. He attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he obtained a master's degree and won the Harrington Award as the best journalism student of his class. DeDapper landed his first job at KWQC in Davenport, Iowa. DeDapper was the station's weekend weather anchor and a weekday reporter. While in Davenport a key story that he covered was the murder-suicide of an entire family in the rural town of Algona, Iowa. After 15 months in Davenport DeDapper moved KTVK in Phoenix, where he was part of the debut team that launched the Newschannel 3 morning news show, and later did investigative reporting, winning several Emmy awards. Among his notable stories was his ongoing coverage of another mass homicide—the 1991 massacre of nine people at the Wat Promkunaram Buddhist Temple. Authorities initially arrested and charged 5 young men in the attacks who were not from the Phoenix area and had no apparent connection to the Temple. DeDapper helped break the story that their confessions were coerced after the true killer was identified as the result of a random traffic stop. In 1992 DeDapper took a job in New York City joining the WABC-TVChannel 7Eyewitness News Team. He was a general assignment reporter for five years during which he covered nearly the entire OJ Simpson trial, the crash of TWA flight 800, and a series of terrorist bombings in Israel. In 1997 DeDapper became the political reporter just in time to cover Rudy Giuliani's reelection campaign. In 1998 DeDapper moved to WNBC-TV where he joined a newly enlarged political unit. He helped develop the groundbreaking "What Matters" series of in-depth issues reporting along with his "Reality Checks". DeDapper built a following for his ability to make sense of complicated stories and make political coverage about more than just the horse race. He led the station's coverage of the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, multiple campaigns for New York and New Jersey Governor and the historic Senatorial campaigns of Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and Kirsten Gillibrand. On September 11, 2001 DeDapper rushed to New York City Hall reporting from there and from the streets adjacent to the World Trade Center. After the collapse of the second tower he moved north and led reporting from the police command center during the following days. DeDapper was the first pool reporter brought to Ground Zero on the morning of September 12 accompanying Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki. During his time at Newschannel 4 DeDapper and the political team won numerous awards including the prestigious Cronkite Award for political reporting. In 2007 Jay and colleague Melissa Russo helped create the first local political video podcast Politics to Go for WNBC.
Post-journalism career
Since his departure from WNBC-TV in 2009 DeDapper has worked in new media, co-founding the video news brand Buzz60 and its parent company Zazoom, and later spinning off and leading Buzztala, a new media technology company providing automated product video ad creation and distribution.
Volunteerism
DeDapper volunteers as a member of the Board of Directors of Groundswell, a New York City arts organization that works with youth to teach life, art and media skills through the creation of socially-conscious murals.
