Walter Cronkite (1916–2009)

In the fall if 1989, I sat deep within the blue light of Conestoga High School’s dusty, off-white library single-finger typing my Northwestern University application into one of the school’s ten, well-worn IBM PCs. I don’t remember much about the assignment, or my thesis, or even what made me think I should be a journalism…

Read More

Breaking The News: Michael Jackson

Sadly, breaking news doesn’t surprises me much anymore. It is immediately what it is. I was in a seventeenth floor corner office overlooking Times Square on a conference call with a blogger from VH1’s Best Week Ever (of all media entities) when I heard the news. “Michael Jackson had a heart attack.” Now, I was…

Read More

Tim Russert (1950-2008)

The New York Times just confirmed some sad news: Tim Russert has died of a heart attack. You’ll recall that Chris and I visited Tim in his NBC offices in November, 2006 to interview him for our documentary, “Mister Rogers & Me.” We scored the interview courtesy of my uncle, with whom Tim had worked…

Read More

Mister Rogers & Me

It was the weekend of my 30th birthday, and just a few hours after disembarking the Hyannis Ferry. My cell phone was still chattering with MTV business as I stood on the back porch. The last rays of light were spilling over the horizon. New York City was slipping away from me as I settled…

Read More