What do you do?
I teach magazine journalism, and I write for magazines. I focus my reporting on crime and the law.

What has your career path been like?
I started as a daily newspaper reporter, mostly covering cops and courts, in Ohio and Texas. Then I moved to a legal weekly newspaper in Texas, advanced to editor and eventually editor/publisher, and then moved to that company’s New York headquarters. For five years I ran our Internet division and then decided I’d had enough of a hybrid editorial/business role, and moved to our flagship publication, The American Lawyer magazine, as executive editor. I left that job in 2004 to move upstate and do what I do now.

Why did you decide to leave a dream job and teach future writers and editors?
I switched to teaching for a variety of reasons: to be nearer to my family because my father was ill; to try something new after 22+ years in the newsroom; to jettison my role as a manager and focus exclusively on journalism; to get back to my roots as a reporter and writer; and to teach newcomers how to break into that business. I so much enjoyed teaching entry-level journalists at The American Lawyer – the scores of interns and fact-checkers I hired and helped train – that I knew I would enjoy moving even closer to the supply of new talent. I was right.

Best professional lesson learned at the J-School?
The hard and careful work required to produce quality journalism.

What is your best advice to current students?
Don’t assume that you know where your career will take you. Explore different segments at the J-School; I always wish I hadn’t avoided the magazine and business writing classes, because that’s much of what I do now. Write about subjects that matter to people, even if they weren’t your passion when you started school. Too often, students only want to write about fashion or sports or food or travel because that’s what they enjoyed reading about when they first got interested in journalism. We can’t all write about those things, and they’re not the only subjects that matter to the public. Finally, don’t assume that when you emerge with a degree, you will have the skills to succeed at any publication. My experience is that people just out of the best J-schools are better prepared than most but are really just at the starting line in terms of developing the needed reporting and writing skills.

What is your secret to success?
Finding and learning from great editors. And, deciding that big salaries and management roles aren’t necessarily the key to a fulfilling career.