Welcome
Who? What? When?
The 5 W's of reporting are Who, What, When, Where, and Why. But to tell this story, I start with Welcome! These pages offer a glimpse into my publishing odyssey—from paperboy to reporter to production maven.
The journey began on a three-speed bicycle hurling neatly-tucked copies of the Long Island (now long-defunct) Press onto doorsteps of homes in Far Rockaway, NY. The shoreline community is the last stop on the A train where urban New York City meets suburban Long Island. When I wasn’t delivering papers, I was collecting them—scooping up the remnants of seven Manhattan dailies left behind by subway riders. I consumed. I compared. I conjured up a career.
I would later work on one of the three surviving papers—the New York Post.
Where? Why? How?
I cut my teeth as Sports Editor—Sports by Schwartz—of the Far Rockaway High School Chat; Sports Editor and Managing Editor of the daily Michigan State University State News; and newspaper advisor to the Tonga Chronicle (while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the South Pacific island nation). At the New York Post, I was a general assignment reporter.
Heeding Horace Greeley's admonition to go west, young man, I took my act to San Francisco. I became a staff member and Production Editor at Consumer Reports Travel Letter, an offshoot of Consumer Reports magazine, and then Associate Production Architect for McGraw-Hill, producing computer books. Along the way, I edited and published VW-XYZ, a publication for car owners, launched Guideboard, an online consumer forum (think Yelp), and worked at a San Francisco non-profit, Homebridge, as an Executive Assistant/Jack-of-Many-Trades. Read more...