Journalism

I worked as a reporter for more than 15 years for a few different media outlets. I still do some journalism from time to time, whether that means profiling professors at Lehigh University or conducting this interview with health coach Samantha Wyland.

My favorite place to work during those years I was a full-time reporter was The Morning Call, where I worked from 2001-2009.  

I was ostensibly a municipal beat reporter, but I had a great editor who assigned me to fill in on a host of other beats – courts, cops, city hall, general assignment – and allowed me to moonlight as a music writer/TV blogger. 

Here are a few of my favorite stories from those days. 

I worked on this story for a few weeks, but it was the result of spending a few years on the beat and getting to know the people, including members of this Bulgarian community. I’m proud of it in part because of what came after: a series of stories that helped one of these immigrants from being deported.

This story wasn’t earth-shattering. It ran on page B-3 on a Monday. But I like how I found it: just driving around one of the towns I covered and seeing a sign in a gas station. And I like how it reads, especially the closing line.

I always liked doing this kind of story: I’d go to a public meeting, something would catch my attention and I’d think “I wonder if that’s happening in other places.” In this case, that something was one of the local schools phasing out the concept of study hall. As it turned out, they weren’t the only one.

This was a difficult story to approach. The victims’ families were more than happy to talk, the convicted killer and his mother, much less so.

Just a fun story about a local celebrity (or rather a celebrity with local connections).

I was extremely lucky to spend five of my eight years at the paper reviewing music and — on occasion —interviewing musicians, including The Cure’s Robert Smith, who was ridiculously polite.

Every so often I’d go out of town for a story, in this case to the PA/Ohio border to the self-proclaimed fireworks capital of the country. This story ended up running in the Washington Post, which was kind of cool.