I’m a journalist and writer living in Chicago. I remain a reporter, having rebounded from a June 2008 layoff that prompted this blog. Since I can’t help but write, this is where I used to talk a bunch about unemployment in the United States, first-hand.
Now I chronicle my efforts to remain a working news reporter, currently at the SouthtownStar. I also co-founded the Not-So-Mighty-Dollar blog.
Talk to me: l_fitzpatrick@hotmail.com
Twitter: ByLaurenFitz
YouTube: ByLaurenFitz
Or come find me at LinkedIn and on Facebook or on Wired Journalists
I’m a Super GA reporter for the south suburban paper, writing about troops and veterans, the Burr Oak cemetery scandal, the economy and whatever else needs doing or grabs my interest. I love the paper trail, but I also tell tons of stories about people. Sometimes I bang out the hard news, but I’m always looking for different ways to tell the rest.
Got raised in Philadelphia by hard-working parents (concrete contractor and medical assistant) who couldn’t believe there were no reporting jobs listed in newspaper classifieds.
Sometimes I feel like proper news reporters are going the way of the praying mantis – so weird and ferocious, so very endangered – and by sometimes, I mean “always anymore”. If only there were a way to federally protect us… but that likely defeats the Point (that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”).
I was part of the investigative team uncovering corruption in the government and police department in south suburban Harvey, won an AP news award for a forensic analysis of Emmett Till’s reopened 1955 murder case, a MADD Illinois award for a drunk driving series and an SNA award for a feature on the mother of a young police officer convicted of a fatal drunk driving crash.
I also hold an MSJ from the Medill School of Journalism and a BS from Georgetown University. While at Medill, I reported from Washington, New York, Egypt and Cyprus in print and radio. Once upon a time, I worked in public television in Philadelphia, where I grew up. Before that, I taught English to schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia, where I wrote and edited a local monthly expatriate newsletter.
