Court records are the highest form of gossip.
During an internship covering the state Capitol in Albany my senior year of college, several politicians were indicted on public corruption charges. It turned out not one, but two state lawmakers were federal informants — wearing wires and secretly recording their colleagues. The pages-long court filings were juicier than anything on TV. Instead of going home after my shift like a normal person, I stayed in the newsroom devouring the details.
Reporting is about understanding motive; asking who benefits and who gets left out?
After watching Almost Famous in my early teens, I was certain I’d become a music journalist. But once I discovered the elite level of gossip buried inside court records, I was hooked. Politics, it turns out, is messy. And I like mess.
Over the next decade, I covered the politics, personalities and policy shaping New York — from the rise and fall of Gov. Andrew Cuomo to investigations over Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising apparatus. I’ve reported on vaccine access inequities that left Black and Latino communities scrambling for appointments during the pandemic, on the immigrant delivery workers — the deliveristas — who kept the city fed while fighting for basic labor protections, and on the quiet procedural maneuvers that determine who gets power and who doesn’t.
At its core, political reporting is about understanding motive. It’s about leveraging information from one source to press another. It’s about asking: Why did this happen? Who benefits? Who gets left out?
While learning the underbelly of decision-making, I realized the real value I bring is demystifying the process — explaining how opaque laws, backroom deals and bureaucratic shifts affect everyday people. While I started out my career as a political reporter, I’ve expanded to cover a range of topics, but that knowledge has helped me hone my investigative skills and use journalism for what I think it should be used for — a public service.
