David Mazzarella, the editor credited with reshaping USA Today and Stars and Stripes, is dead at 87.
Both publications reported Monday that the Newark native died Thursday Mazzarella in Falls Church, Virginia, as a result of complication from a fall.
“Mazz” helped transform USA Today from a paper known for charts and graphs to a top-selling publication ready for the digital age when he was at the helm from 1994 to 1999.
“Great coverage became less the exception, more the expected,” USA Today’s former managing editor of news told the paper.
After leaving USA Today, Mazzarella served as Stars and Stripes’ editorial director and ombudsman from 2000 to 2009.
Publisher Max Lederer called his commitment to that storied military publication “profound” in a Monday statement.
Lederer credited Mazzarella for stabilizing Stars and Stripes by championing “foundational principles” of sound journalism as the U.S. engaged in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mazzarella graduated from Rutgers University, where he served as the editor-in-chief for school paper The Targum. He also worked for Cape May Weekly before taking a job with The Associated Press in Newark in 1962.
Mazzarella reportedly earned $84 weekly and worked his way up to night editor before being transferred to work for the AP in New York. Some of his 45 years in journalism were spent overseas including his tenure as war correspondent.
According to his obituary, Mazzarella’s parents emigrated to the United States from Italy in the early 1920s and worked in the garment business.
His dad was a tailor for Howard Clothes in Brooklyn.
His mother, who lived to be 107 years old, worked as a seamstress in Newark. Mazzarella wrote a book about her in 2012 called “Always Eat the Hard Crust of the Bread.”
It was inspired by a word of advice she often shared.
An Aug. 2 service for him will be held in Washington D.C. He’s survived by his wife and three daughters.
