Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Another great story to tell in my classes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - For 10 years, besides cracking undergraduate heads at the university (trying to instill a little journalistic knowledge) I worked as a consultant at The Sacramento Bee newspaper, editing the Op-Ed pages and the Sunday Forum section when the editors of those respective parts of the newspaper took well-deserved vacations.

And in the course of those years, I had many conversations with Tom Philp, who Monday won the Pulitzer prize for a series of editorials.

Tom came up on the writing/reporting side of things. He didn't just jump into the editorial section, spewing opinions. The guy actually RESEARCHES, he actually REPORTS, and it makes his editorials ring true, something many newspaper editorials don't. (See USA Today, any day, on any topic...)

It's nice to see the good guys win in the Pulitizer contest, which has its own set of peculiar politics. Tom triumphed over them - plus he what he won for was excellent work.

And, like every other clinger-on, I'll grab a little of the glory myself, claiming that it was all my hallway conversations four or five years ago that help launched him. Well, ok, how about influenced? Swayed? Tipped?

Now I need to get cracking on my own writing this morning so I can win something, (or at least get some cash...).

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