What was your first job as a journalist?
Covering the city of Rosedale Maryland for the Rosedale Observer.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes. When I started at the Boston Herald I was given a manual typewriter. I couldn't use it, and brought in my own electric typewriter.
How is social media changing news?
everyone with a camera phone is now a reporter
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee
What does it mean to be a journalist?
To inform the public of things that they need to know
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
Email or Twitter
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Google, Word, SSpark Toro, Answerthepublic, followerwonk,
What's your favorite social network?
Twitter
Who do you wish followed you?
Rachel Maddow
Why did you become a journalist?
I grew up in a family of journalists and didn't know you could be anything else
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
Yes, I was editor in chief of the school paper and also a contributing writer. Also worked as editor-in-chief for my college newspaper.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
Covering the protests at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in the 1977
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
write about what you know. It's what my father told me, and also told John Kenneth Galbraith when he was Ken's editor
When's the best time to pitch you?
Overnight so I can see it in the morning
What's the best pitch you ever got?
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
The five or six I get every day pitching me on stories about spectrometers and other measurement devices I don't understand.
What's your favorite drink?
Stoneface IPA
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
in my garden or on my sailboat
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
My local paper, Seacoast Online and The New Yorker.
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That its boring
