I'm a Monitor Lifer
I made first Monitor trip in utero when my dad, a reporter in the paper鈥檚 New York bureau, moved to Boston with my expectant mother. 聽They settled in a modest walk up apartment 40 feet from the building where the Monitor is published.
The spirit of nepotism was alive and well at the Monitor then. 聽So I made my first appearance in the paper on page one early in January 1948. 聽 I was wearing a diaper and holding a Massachusetts license plate. 聽It is good to get the most embarrassing moment of your career over early.
My next front page appearance did not come until December 1972 when a story I wrote appeared there. 聽By then, I had managed to graduate from college, serve in the US Army, and get a job as a Monitor business writer.
In the years since, I have worked as a Washington reporter, been an on-camera correspondent with the Monitor鈥檚 now defunct TV operations, and served as editor of the paper for seven years.
When I left the editor鈥檚 office in 2001, I was given a job with an endless supply of free meals as host of the Monitor鈥檚 Washington newsmaker breakfasts. 聽 For more than 40 years, the paper has asked key public officials to take part in thoughtful conversations with reporters from major newspapers and magazines. 聽 Hosting those breakfast gatherings is one of the most unusual and interesting jobs in journalism. 聽More about better journalism through bacon in the next posting.
