Political Reporter

It started innocently enough as a student at the Columbia Journalism School. Except nothing was simple in the time I spent reporting in New York City. The headlines included the Daily News classic “Ford to City: Drop Dead” as the city tried to dig out of a fiscal mess. But there was policy and politics as far as the eye could see in a presidential primary season that took me from a Democratic clubhouse in Brooklyn to a bar in South Boston.

I covered candidates and I also covered issues – like the unfolding nightmare of desegregating Boston Public Schools and the people affected by elected officials who placed politics ahead of education. It prepared me for my first job, covering local government and politics at a small Massachusetts daily, becoming a big fish in a little pond as I honed my craft by interacting with mayors, city councilors and state legislators.

From there I made the jump to United Press International, once the principal competitor to the Associated Press, today remembered, if at all, for being the first major news organization to hit the financial skids. It was a heady experience – covering a Boston public transit strike within days of starting the job and fine tuning my reporting and writing skills.

But it also gave me a chance to do what I always wanted to do – cover state government and politics – not to mention the 1988 presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Along the way there was the chance to be present at the creation and eventual downfall of what would become known as The Massachusetts Miracle.

The experience proved pivotal to my journalistic recovery – first by developing a preference for covering policy over politics, then by putting my money where my mouth was by working in communications in state government, first at the Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means Committee then the Massachusetts Cultural Council – the agency that funds arts and humanities.