About me

I’ve been a professional journalist, with a couple of gaps, since 1988, when I started as a full-time reporter at the Evening Phoenix, in Phoenixville, for $12,500 a year. 

I started reporting at the Daily Local in West Chester, Chester County, in 1989. I worked at the Reading Eagle as a reporter and editor from 1995 to 2009. 

I left the Eagle to become the managing editor of bctv.org, started with local funds and a big grant from the Knight Foundation. In March 2013, BCTV’s executive director fired me for insubordinately posting a link to comments by Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer that she had told me not to post. 

Since then I’ve written a blog about local journalism and many business articles for the Lehigh Valley Business Journal.

Put the interests of the readers first; that was the main lesson distilled from editors including John Harvey, Bruce Mowday, Dave Warner, Denny Deysher, Nick Yost, Chuck Gallagher, Karen Miller, Donna Reed, Tom Knause, Mark Nemirow, Kevin Ames, Bill Reber, Tina Bushnell, Nick Zaffary, Brian Young, and many others.

I have a master’s degree from the University of Virginia. I taught English in Japan for 14 months. I have also traveled from Maine to California, and in Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, England, Wales, Ireland, France, Spain and Brazil. I grew up near Downingtown, Chester County. Now I live in Lower Heidelberg Township and read and garden and do music as much as possible.