Lane joins SUNY as Chief Communications Officer from Newsday. Prior to his 13 years with Newsday as a columnist and editorial board member, Lane was a reporter, columnist, and assistant city editor at the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In his career he has covered numerous topics, including politics, sports, food, and government. In 2004 he covered the war in Iraq as an embedded reporter with the 109th Field Artillery unit of the Pennsylvania National Guard. He began his career as a general assignment reporter at the Kingstree News and worked at numerous newspapers during a 25-year career in journalism. He was born in New Jersey, raised in South Carolina, and attended the University of South Carolina and Simons Rock of Bard College, where he earned a degree in theater. Filler has been the recipient of several journalistic honors, and two of the projects his work was central to have been named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.