KDKA’s Pam Surano joins Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh
The next phase of Pam Surano’s career was inspired fully by her family and faith.
Surano, 52, had been reporting for KDKA-TV since June 2018 before exiting the station earlier this month to become a producer and assignment editor with the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. The New Jersey native and Duquesne University graduate announced her big professional change last week on social media.
Anyone who has talked to Surano for more than a few minutes knows how important her Christian faith is to her. Of even greater value to Surano, though, is her 15-year-old daughter, Mary, who is still recovering from a 2020 trampoline accident that left her paralyzed from the middle of her chest down.
“It was just truly life-changing in the way that I see the fragility of life and how much I want to give back,” Surano told the PostGazette. “My faith has not just sustained me and Mary, but it has been the ladder leading me out of despair. I want to keep climbing the ladder, because I know there’s more.
“I don’t want to get stuck on one rung and not know the ‘more.’ If I can help other people know the ‘more,’ that’s why we’re here.”
Surano’s new role in the diocese’s department of communications and community relations includes doing a bit of faith reporting for Pittsburgh Catholic Magazine. Her new boss happens to be Jennifer Antkowiak, a former KDKA anchor who is now the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh’s executive director of community relations.
Surano wasn’t trying to leave KDKA, but something about it felt right to her on a spiritual level.
“My work wasn’t done [at KDKA] and I felt really loyal and dedicated to them,” Surano said. “But then this opportunity came my way and my initial response was, this is something I want to work toward in the future. During the time I was thinking about it, I felt God working on me ... and he gave me the answer. This was the direction he wanted me to go in.”
Mary certainly played a role in Surano’s choice to leave KDKA.
She said that Mary is becoming a “fiercely independent” teenager as she continues to grow stronger and more mobile following her ordeal. It’s been tough sledding, and Mary still can’t walk well without her braces, but Surano said her daughter is showing immense improvement as she continues going through multiple forms of physical therapy.
Her time at KDKA included covering the mass shooting at Squirrel Hill’s Tree of Life synagogue only a few months after she beg a n reporting there. Surano vividly recalled standing on the corner of Forbes and Murray avenues during a community vigil for the 11 victims on a day when “love overshadowed hate.” She also mentioned the emotional toll covering the kidnapping and subsequent death of 2year-old Nalani Johnson took on her.
KDKA “could not have been more gracious to me” during her time there, Surano said.
“There is no greater place to report the news than Pittsburgh,” she continued. “The people make you want to get up and do your job to the best of your ability every day. And the coworkers I had have lived that mission. It makes you want to do your best for them as well.”
That includes Antkowiak, whom Surano met while she was working as an assignment editor at WPXI-TV. She always admired Antkowiak’s reporting prowess and “really wanted to emulate her.” Antkowiak is “a role model to me,” Surano said, and she’s thrilled to be working with her again at the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Though Surano loved her time at KDKA, she’s grateful to be in a role that will allow her “to deliver hope to everyone” in this new, explicitly faith-based capacity.
“I’m going to miss it because I loved it,” she said. “It is hard to say goodbye to something you loved. I cried a lot.... I was blessed with the opportunity to stay. But I felt like I was really called somewhere else. When you have the opportunity to stay and leave it behind, that means you really loved it.”