(Frank Phillips is the former State House Bureau Chief and current freelance writer for the Boston Globe.)
“I did a story several years ago which showed how the state’s leading business lobby – Associated Industries of Massachusetts – was blocking a bill to protect protect pregnant workers on the job. A small group of women from Western Massachusetts, who had little if any leverage with the legislative leadership, was pushing the bill but getting nowhere. They were no match against one of the most influential lobby groups at the State House. The story prompted an embarrassed House speaker to order the bill out of the committee where it had been buried for months and it was eventually passed into law. AIM’s ability to block such much-needed legislation that would provide work-place pregnancy protection offered a strong illustration of a larger story – the group’s huge behind-the-scenes influence on Beacon Hill and its leaders.”
- “Almost every day of my long career as a political, investigative, and government reporter I was involved in the role the press plays in keeping the public informed and public figures honest. It is a critical – and most satisfying part – of the job. If you are interested in public policy and politics, you can have a significant impact as a reporter in making sure that there is transparency and honesty in the process and the public is fully informed.”
- “I would emphasize that all the reporters I have worked with at the Globe – and earlier at the Boston Herald and the Lowell Sun – take their craft and their mission seriously. They know they are the public watchdogs, who hold our public officials accountable and expose some of the major issues facing society but are often ignored. The Globe’s reporting on widespread sexual abuse in the Catholic church is an illustration of a newspaper making a brave decision to draw the curtain back on an a very ugly social problem.“
- “Like all professionals, journalists are not perfect, they can make mistakes, and they can get it wrong or misunderstand what the real story is. But it is very rare these days to see an unethical or corrupt reporter. Early in my career, I did see some corruption in journalism but, particularly since Watergate, journalistic standards are far higher and are adhered to more vigorously.”
(Edited by Natalie DeRoche.)
