TomMeagher.com

Resume

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Journalism Experience

Herald News
Editing; Paterson, N.J., December 2007 - present
As City Editor, I lead a desk of 13 reporters and three assistant editors for this 30,000-circulation daily. Manage the desk to cover three cities in our urban core, as well as communities and stories around North Jersey. Assign stories, coach reporting and coax re-writes. Lead regular, in-house brownbag workshops on reporting and investigative skills and tap other newsroom leaders to do the same. Direct enterprise projects, including stories about imprisoned firefighters falsifying documents for work-release programs and home repair contractors who duped homeowners into burdensome and unnecessary second mortgages.

Computer-Assisted Reporting; June 2006 - December 2007

Responsible for the newspaper’s database work, mapping, investigative projects and statistical analysis.
Led newsroom-wide training courses in CAR and investigative techniques and on state and federal freedom of information laws–through weekly one-on-one sessions and monthly classes.
Assisted reporters and editors across the newsroom to incorporate data into the daily report and pursued my own projects. One such story demonstrated how a cozy relationship between a mayor and a developer cost the nearly-bankrupt city of Paterson $9 million.
Conceived, designed and maintained the newspaper’s intranet site, “Page One”, a repository for training resources, beat memos, backgrounders, professional best practices and databases.

Municipal Reporter; July 2004 - May 2006
Covering the troubled city of Paterson, I consistently broke stories of import to our readers, from city lawyers sexually harassing secretaries at public meetings to parents worried about escalating gun violence. My stories here won state and regional awards.

Associated Press
Stringer; Kansas City, Mo., March 2002 - August 2002

As a stringer for the wire service, I reported on Kansas City’s professional soccer team, the Wizards. This job forced me to become quick, concise and accurate.

Lawrence Journal-World
Reporter; Lawrence, Kan., January 2000 - December 2000

Covered the police, fire and courts as a night cops reporter at this 20,000-circulation daily that pioneered the multimedia convergence newsroom.

Spokane Spokesman-Review, Vail Daily, Leadville Chronicle
Regional Reporter; Washington, DC, August 1999 - December 1999

As an intern, I reported on all three branches of the federal government, relating events in the Capitol to readers in Washington state and Colorado.

Columbia Missourian
Police reporter; Columbia, Mo., January 1998 - May 1999

As a college student, worked as a police and general assignment reporter at this 5,500-circulation community daily operated by the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.

Awards

3rd place in the 2007 Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Public Service award from the New Jersey Press Association, with Samantha Henry, for “The Poor Side of Town for Section 8 Tenants”
Finalist in the reporting category for the 2007 Deadline Club Awards.
1st place in Enterprise Reporting in the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists’ 2005 Excellence in Journalism awards for “A Temporary Life - Low Wages, Strong Backs”, with Suzanne Travers.
1st place in the 2005 Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Public Service award from the New Jersey Press Association, with Asjylyn Loder, for “Land Grab”
Merit award from the Society of Silurians’ 2006 Excellence in Journalism contest for “A Temporary Life - Low Wages, Strong Backs”
Finalist in the reporting category for the 2006 Deadline Club Awards.

Related Experience

Graduate of the week-long 2006 Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp and the 2007 Advanced CAR Statistics Boot camp sponsored by Investigative Reports and Editors and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
Member of SPJ, IRE, the New Jersey Press Association and the South Asian Journalists Association.
Earned the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America
Proficient with Microsoft Excel and Access; SQL; HTML; CSS; ESRI ArcGIS; Google Maps; and most word processing, spreadsheet and database programs. Have also worked with SPSS, SQL Server, Adobe Dreamweaver and Photoshop.
Can type 90 words per minute.