Careers.2

(This is the second in a series. Read Part One.)

I left CIR in 1989 to resume my career as a magazine editor, becoming bureau chief for California magazine. We did some big stories there, too, but our Australian owner shut us down without warning one day; and two days later I was named Investigative Editor at Mother Jones. We did a lot of good stories over the next two years there, but it came time for me to leave, even though I wasn't sure where I would go next.

My old friend Raul Ramirez was leaving his post at KQED-FM for six months to go to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow, and asked me if I would fill in for him. This was my first taste of public radio news, one of the best venues a journalist could find, and I truly loved it there.

When Raul came back, I was ready to jump to the newspaper business, but the president of KQED made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I moved "upstairs," bought some suits, and became an instant executive. Another half-year and I was named Executive Vice President for KQED Inc. 

I enjoyed this new work, including an extremely long, slow negotiation with the union representing the station's technical workforce. It was both the details and the big picture of helping run a company important in our community that attracted me at that point in my life.

That job came to a sudden end due to internal politics and external economics, however -- so it was a transition I didn't see coming. The media world was undergoing an historic transformation and I would change with it.

(Part Three tomorrow.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump Trial Live Updates: Hope Hicks Delivers Emotionally Gripping Testimony Before Trial Adjourns for Weekend (NYT)

• Hope Hicks, ex-Trump adviser, recounts political firestorm in 2016 over ‘Access Hollywood’ tape (AP)

• NYPD takes dozens more into custody as police continue facing off with protesters nationally (WP)

• US anti-war student protests and police raids shake up schools’ graduation plans (Reuters)

• Sudden surge in sea level rise threatens the American South (WP)

• Orangutan in the wild applied medicinal plant to heal its own injury, biologists say (NPR)

• U.S. Accuses Russia of Using Chemical Weapons in Ukraine (NYT)

• China launches moon probe as space race with US heats up (CNN)

• Call the campus protests what they are (WP)

• “Mrs. Doubtfire” Child Stars Reunite Over 30 Years After Movie's Release: 'Still Feels Like Family' (People)

• It looks like OpenAI is about to make Google’s worst nightmare come true (BGR)

• Rabbit vs. Meta Glasses vs. Humane: Finding a Usable AI Gadget (WSJ)

• Stanford AI leader Fei-Fei Li building 'spatial intelligence' startup (Reuters)

• Everyone On Camping Trip Just Gets Out Of Way While Friend Who Knows What He’s Doing Takes Care Of Everything (The Onion)