Fall 2003

by Mary LeClair

From Sacramento to Boston, Rome to Washington, D.C., a surprising number of alums are bringing the news to the masses each day.

They are columnists, editors, producers and sports analysts at the country’s major media outlets, both print and electronic. They have covered the revolution in Iran and the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and have been embedded with United States forces in Iraq. They’ve witnessed the doomed launch of the space shuttle Challenger, walked the streets of New York on Sept. 11, chased storms in Oklahoma, spent days in the streets with crack addicts—and reported what they saw and heard to millions worldwide.

Now, some take a moment to reflect on their time at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, their careers and the events they have covered.

An HWS Beginning

Ben Wattenberg '55

Shortly after midnight on Sept. 9, 1976, Chairman Mao Zedong, leader of the People's Republic of China, died at the age of 82. Ben Wattenberg ’55 happened to be on a journalistic free-lance assignment mission in Beijing at that time, and he jumped on the story of Mao’s passing. His reports appeared on page one, above-the-fold, in the Washington Post for four days.
The current moderator of the weekly PBS television program “Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg” believes he was at the Colleges at a most fortuitous moment.

“When I attended HWS in the early 1950s, the English department was of the highest caliber—Otto Schoen-René, Ben Atkinson, John Lydenberg, Katherine Cook, E.E. Griffith,” Wattenberg says. “I had always wanted to write. That desire was sharpened by my HWS teachers, and the experience I had in writing a column for and then editing the Hobart Herald.”

Steve Bromberg '72

Steve Bromberg ’72, executive editor for Foxnews.com, recalls developing many tangible job skills while working as editor-in-chief of The Herald in his sophomore and senior years.
“I learned how to manage a staff, how to meet deadlines, how to edit copy, how to give a story back to a writer and direct him or her in ways to make it better, how to design and lay out the pages, and how every mistake you make — and I made quite a few — reflects on you and your publication,” Bromberg says. “I learned the importance of checking sources, questioning everything I publish, legal rights to materials and the libel laws. The hours I spent editing The Herald were invaluable.”

Over the past three decades, San Francisco writer and editor Richard Rapaport ’74 has reported from the front line in Bosnia and interviewed myriad dignitaries, including the prime minister of Israel and the president of Ireland, as well as business powerhouses such as Bill Gates. But the investigative story he wrote for The Herald as a Hobart junior on the lack of a Planned Parenthood office on campus is the piece Rapaport calls the most significant of his career. “That story is what made me a journalist,” he says.

Leslie Peirez ’92, producer for CBS, says the combination of courses she took at HWS—anthropology, English, media and society—as well as studying abroad in Australia and enlightening conversations with professors such as Lee Quinby, have proved invaluable. Those classes and experiences gave her the depth and flexibility necessary to cover a wide range of stories, from working backstage with Gloria Estefan, to covering the 2000 Presidential election results from Florida, to traveling around the globe for three years producing the “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” segment for NBC’s “Today Show.”

William Claiborne '60

Another Washington Post reporter, William Claiborne ’60, praises the Colleges’ strong emphasis on interdisciplinary education. He worked as a national and foreign correspondent for 32 years. As part of his job, he has made 13 long-distance moves, five of them international.
“I can’t think of anything more valuable, if you are thrust cold-turkey into a distant and unfamiliar part of the world to write about a completely unfamiliar subject, than the kind of broad liberal arts education I received at Hobart,” Claiborne says.

Hanna Fairfield Wallenberg '96

Hannah Fairfield Wallander ’96, graphics coordinator for the national and foreign desks at the New York Times, agrees with Claiborne’s praise for the liberal arts curriculum.
“I got the kind of education at HWS that makes a good journalist—a necessary breadth of knowledge that enables a person to ask intelligent questions about any subject. Good journalists don’t need to know all the answers, but they need to know enough to ask the smart questions,” says Wallander.

Sometimes that breadth of knowledge pays off in unforeseen ways. In December 1998, after working as a sports writer and editor for his entire post-graduation career, Tony Reid ’79 moved to the foreign desk of the Washington Post, where he works today as copy chief.

tony Reid '79

“It was an unconventional move, to say the least,” says Reid. “I met with quiet skepticism in various corners of the newsroom. But it’s worked out well, and I think my grounding in political science is largely responsible for that.”

Emmy Award-winning CBS News correspondent and HWS Trustee Bill Whitaker ’73 says he puts the education he got to good use every day. “This profession is always putting me in new places, new situations, learning new bits of information,” Whitaker says. “I have to use the skills that I got at HWS—to be a quick study and learn how to take all this information and put it in a form that is concise and understandable.”

Bill Whitaker '73

“At the end of the day, journalism is all about curiosity,” says Terrence Martin ’66, executive producer at CBS News Productions. “In fact, that’s all it is, a profession of men and women curious about the world around them who want to share it with a wider audience. I can think of no better preparation for journalism than the four years I spent at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.”

Climbing the Ladder

The paths journalistic alums have taken may vary, but each generally has seen a solid rise up through the ranks.

Dianne Doctor, news director at WCBS TV in New York City, has made a steady climb since graduating from William Smith in 1978. Right out of college, she got a part-time job at a Geneva radio station and was accepted into the master’s program at Syracuse University’s prestigious Newhouse School of Public Communications. An internship at a local television station followed, which led to a full-time job reporting and producing in Syracuse.

Dianne Doctor '78

“I really liked the immediacy of local news and the impact a story can make,” Doctor says.

After working in smaller local markets and a stint at WWOR TV in New York City, Doctor moved to WNBC. Over the course of 11 years she produced many newscasts, and eventually became executive producer of the special projects unit. In 2000, she was promoted to vice president and news director at WNBC, “a dream-come-true job,” she says. Last summer, she moved across town to the same position at WCBS TV in New York, where she says she’s enjoying the challenge of competing against her former employer.

Victor Simpson '63

Following graduation and a stint in the military, Victor Simpson ’63 began his climb by landing a job at a small New York State newspaper. He moved on to a larger paper, then joined The Associated Press. While rising within the editorial hierarchy, Simpson says he decided to take a shot at what long had been a dream—working as a foreign correspondent. “The AP sent me overseas and 30 years later I am still there, in Rome, Italy,” he says.

Sometimes career moves are about carrying on a family tradition. Kellie King ’94 has always wanted to work in the family business. The daughter of the chairman of the board for King World Productions, a syndication company founded by her grandparents in 1964, King has always had a yen for the media. After graduating from William Smith with a bachelor’s degree in English, she worked as an assistant assignment editor with KTVU, a Fox affiliate in San Francisco. A few years later, she moved to New York City and the Fox news station, and is now a producer at “Inside Edition.”

Milissa Rehberger '93

Other times, advancement is almost a fluke, a matter of being in the right place at the right time. After a couple of internships, Milissa Rehberger ’93 landed her first job at a small cable news station on Long Island, where she had grown up. By coincidence, she arrived in time to cover the biggest story in the area’s history—the Joey Buttafuoco case, which allowed her to work side by side with national reporters.

On the strength of her reporting during that media event as well as others, she landed jobs at TV stations in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Greenville, S.C., before arriving at the FOX network as the weekend anchor. After four years she went to Oklahoma City as a regular morning anchor, and then on to an even larger market, Orlando.

Bob Tedeschi '87

A journalist’s career path can be a winding one. After graduating from Columbia’s graduate school of journalism in 1990, New York Times columnist Bob Tedeschi ’87 won a fellowship to do reporting in Germany, then the Soviet Union. He later took a job as a business writer for the Connecticut Post, mostly doing off-beat features. Then he took a five-year detour, freelancing and teaching various college courses, as well as running creative writing workshops for children at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.

As his career progressed, Tedeschi found he was much more interested in the craft of writing stories than in breaking “important” news. So in 1997, when looking for steady journalism work that could help sustain his fiction habit, he turned to the Internet.

“I pitched some business-related ideas to the online section of the Times,” Tedeschi says. “Within a year I was offered columnist spots in two sections of the paper, and I was off and running.”

Alan Heavens '72

Alan Heavens ’72, columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, understands how chance can play a major role in career advancement. Years ago, he bought a couple of old houses and decided to fix them up himself. Along the way he learned a lot about real estate and do-it-yourself projects. An editor asked him to share his experiences in print, and now Heavens is considered a national expert on real estate and home improvement. His column runs in newspapers all over the country.

“People wave to me on the street and stop by while I’m working in the yard on Sunday afternoons,” Heavens says. “It’s scary, since I consider myself just a reporter who owns a house.”

Moments in History

Charlie Brennan '77

Charlie Brennan ’77 calls his career a ringside seat to some of the greatest excitement that life can offer—births, deaths, victories, defeats, disasters, miracles and everything in between. “I feel like it's been my ticket to witness the human drama in every dimension and manifestation,” says the Rocky Mountain News reporter, “and I wouldn’t trade my experiences of the past 23 years for anything.”

This past year, Brennan has been embedded with the V Corps of the U.S. Army, filing stories from Camp Virginia in Kuwait. He says the war in Iraq has been the most significant story he’s covered thus far, but a close second would be the unsolved 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Brennan collaborated with Lawrence Schiller on the best-selling non-fiction book Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, and also served as a regular commentator on the case for “Larry King Live.”

Brennan is not alone. He and his HWS counterparts have covered the most historic events over the past century and have interviewed many world leaders.

Read Jackson '66

Read Jackson ’66, vice president for Original Programs for the Fox Sports Network, can rattle off several memorable assignments: covering Pope John Paul’s visit to America in 1980, spending time with former President Richard Nixon in exile at San Clemente, and the Challenger disaster. But Jackson says his most memorable story remains the 1976 presidential debates and that year’s presidential election campaign coverage.

“As a young producer I was thrust into the thick of the behind-the-scenes operation of our political process. It was like being a government insider for a time,” Jackson recalls. “Just standing next to the president, whether backstage in a theatre as they prepared to debate or in the White House, was a rush. Try to imagine telling the president where to stand and when to start talking.”

Holman Jenkins '82

Holman Jenkins ’82, an award-winning reporter and member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, recalls his most memorable coverage—in Southern Africa, at the end of apartheid and during the withdrawal of the Cubans and Soviets from the neighboring countries of Angola and Mozambique.

“Countries were rethinking the bad economic development models inherited from the colonial powers,” says Jenkins, who also writes editorials and the weekly “Business World” column for the Journal. “One could imagine things were on the verge of getting a whole lot better, until a South African naval intelligence officer invited me in for a briefing about the extent of HIV infection in the armed forces of neighboring countries like Zambia. That was a memorable story because it taught me about the pitfall of easy optimism.”

Not all memorable stories involve wars or meetings with international figures. Several alums recall the human interest stories they’ve covered, tragic events that happened to good people.
Hart Seely ’74, a writer with Syracuse newspapers, recalls reporting on abuses within the New York State Division for Youth that were systematically covered up by management. The stories he wrote wound up spawning a statewide investigative commission, “which in the end, forced changes,” says Seely.

In the five years that Robin Finn ’76 worked for the Hartford Courant, writing cover pieces for its Sunday magazine, she followed many gut-wrenching stories of ordinary people such as a mother who lost her husband and children to a drunk driver. Finn says she’ll never forget Tracey Thurman, who was abused and viciously attacked by her ex-husband due to the inadequacy of domestic abuse legislation/enforcement.

Finn says she enjoys her current assignment for the New York Times, writing a column for the Metro Section called “Public Lives.” She’s pleased that the job allows her to continue telling people’s stories. “This assignment is by far the most interesting and diverse I’ve had,” she says.

Journalism is a Passion

Alan Heavens ’72, of the Philadelphia Inquirer, came to Hobart wanting to be an Episcopal minister. But others, like Milissa Rehberger ’93, co-anchor of Fox 35 News in Orlando, and Bob Tedeschi ’87, columnist for the New York Times, have always known they wanted to be journalists. Some, like Sarah Nordgren ’76, deputy director of state news for the Associated Press, “stumbled” into a journalism career years after graduation.

Despite their different beginnings, what they all seem to have in common is a fervor for reporting the news and in getting the story right.

“Reporters and editors have tremendous access to areas others don’t have,” says Nordgren. “Along with that privilege comes the responsibility of being accurate and fair to your sources, whether it’s the governor of a state or a child who has entrusted you with her story. For me, journalism is a passion I feel lucky to have found.”

The job is described as demanding and invigorating—but never easy. “Working on deadline raises the adrenalin level, and when you’re done, all you want to do is sleep,” says Heavens. “When you wake up, you move on to the next assignment.”

Bromberg, of Foxnews.com, says there has been one overriding factor — a single passion — that drives him. “I love the news, period. It’s the first thing I listen to when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I watch when I go to bed at night. I read the newspaper on the train to the office every morning. And I get to spend an entire day, every day, watching the news,” he says.

Bromberg believes his mentor at the New York Post, sports editor Sid Friedlander, had it right when, quoting an editor at the Herald Tribune, he said being a journalist “sure beats working for a living.”

Just one year on the job and Dave Schwartz ’01, sports anchor at KAWE-TV in Minnesota, knows what his fellow alums are talking about. “I can tell you that my passion to tell great stories and share my love of sports with people is my driving force. I want people to feel exhilarated just like I do when they watch my sportscasts. I love what I do and wouldn’t change it for the world.”