Journalism

Major Stories

These are the most important stories in my career: major investigative pieces dealing with significant social problems that, in some cases, led to small but important changes. I am proud to have written these pieces, and to have had editors who supported work of this length and quality.

arrow down See a porfolio of major stories.

San Francisco knew for a decade that it was shouldering an unbearable financial burden by taking on increasingly generous pension and benefit obligations for its employees and retirees. Not only did it not try to stop, it actively sabotaged efforts to solve the problem. This story shows how.  

This story about a pervasive culture of unaccountability in San Francisco government made national headlines and focused new attention on the problems facing one of America's major cities. 

Written at the 10th anniversary of New York state's standardized testing regimen, this story examines the many failures that resulted from the state's imposition of a standardized set of graduation exams on high school students. It exposed the way it which the state had received, then ignored, expert advice in designing it tests that likely would have prevented these problems. Appearing in 11 newspapers statewide, this award winning story helped usher in small but meaningful reforms.

This examination of youth violence, part 3 of a three part series, revealed that despite having a strong grasp of effective ways to prevent delinquency and protest at-risk kids, most governments and school systems choose to implement approaches that we know don't work. Effective strategies are time and resource intensive, adn inconvenient for adults - while ineffective strategies are cheap and easy. As long as preventing bad outcomes for youth is really about what's convenient for adults, this trend will continue.

Stories for Messenger-Post Newspapers

For just over five years I covered local beats for Messenger-Post Newspapers, then a family of 10 weekly and one daily newspapers in upstate New York. During the last three years of my time there, I wrote a weekly column covering regional government issues. The column was popular enough that when I left MPN, they asked me to continue it on a freelance basis, which I still do to this day. The news articles and columns below represent some of my favorites among the hundreds I wrote during this time.

arrow down See a selection of news articles and local columns written for MPN.

Local news articles:

 

Regional news columns:

 

Columns for Gatehouse Media

Since 2006, when Messenger-Post Newspapers was purchased by national consortium Gatehouse Media, I've had the opportunity to regularly write columns on issues of national significance, and have them syndicated through the hundreds of papers under the Gatehouse umbrella. Not all columns appear everywhere, but it's gratifying to know my work has appeared in all 50 states.

arrow down See a porfolio columns for Gatehouse Media.

Ariticles for SF Weekly/Village Voice Media

Until recently I served as the San Francisco city government blogger - and occasionally at-large correspondent - for SF Weekly, the Village Voice Media owned newspaper in San Francisco. In addition to writing a weekly column "SF Government InAction!," I covered meetings, issues, events, and the carnival of SF politics.

arrow downSee a selection of political articles for SF Weekly.