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Former N.Y. Daily News Reporter Paul LaRosa Found His Medium in Television Drama

Paul LaRosa        Photo Credit: Susan Watts, N.Y. Daily News

Soon after New York Daily News reporter Paul LaRosa [See Bio  ] took a buyout from the tabloid in March, 1991 after suffering through what he described as ``a violent and contentious five-month strike,’’ he like so many others, took the reporting tools they learned as print journalists and transferred them to another medium.

LaRosa actually had started working for CBS in their entertainment division during the newspaper strike as a writer for ``Top Cops.’’ His job involved finding some of the most dramatic blood curdling police stories he could find, write up a snappy description, and then turn it over to the screen writers and a production team in Toronto, who would then work their magic and whip up a dramatic production for television.

Encouraged by his new television experience and hoping to take advantage of the sudden rise in television news magazine productions, LaRosa sent his Daily News bylined clips to CBS, hoping to get hired for the new show, “Street Stories with Ed Bradley.”  Though CBS did call him in for an interview, he didn’t get the job, but was so encouraged by the rejection letter (which indicated they might hire him in the future) that LaRosa never became too discouraged. 

When LaRosa learned the show was renewed, he immediately sent them another batch of clips. They brought him in for another interview, only this time they hired him on six-month contract basis. Similar to his other television assignment with ``Top Cops’’, LaRosa was responsible for finding dramatic police stories, put into writing a compelling narrative and then pass it on to the producers.

After being hired a second time by CBS, LaRosa knew if he was going to have a future in this business, it would be incumbent upon him to learn exactly how television shows are produced from the ground up. So, armed with a notebook, he approached the producers and editors and asked them to teach him all he needs to know about dramatic television production. They were all too willing to oblige this enthusiastic greenhorn, bringing him on television shoots and showing him precisely what makes gripping television drama.

A year later, LaRosa’s boss was reassigned to take over ``48 Hours’’ and decided to bring this former Daily News reporter along with her.  That was 20 years ago this month. After 18 years producing for ``48 Hours,’’ LaRosa has been on the receiving end of two Emmys. He’s also co-produced the highly-acclaimed documentary “9/11” which also won an Edward R. Murrow and Peabody Awards.

``I did learn television’’ LaRosa tells me ``and was humbled by it; I consider it much harder than print journalism.’’

His success in the television industry has led to him to some lucrative book deals, something that wasn’t possible working for a daily newspaper. The reason is simple. When you produce for television, there is usually loads of material left on the cutting room floor. One story in particular – the murder/suicide of the Tacoma Police Chief and his wife in front of their two young children in 2003, prompted LaRosa to approach his bosses about writing a book about this chilling episode, which took place at Gig Harbor, Washington, a quiet Tacoma suburb.

CBS agreed; and soon LaRosa was off writing about it, which led to the publication of ``Tacoma Confidential.''

LaRosa wrote three more books since ``Tacoma Confidential ‘’ and just this spring he published his memoirs, ``Leaving Story Avenue - My journey from the projects to the front page,’’ a book which chronicles his humble origins, growing up in the Soundview, Bronx housing projects, landing a job as copy boy at The Daily News fresh out of college, later being promoted to reporter, all during a bygone era before computers and by extension the Internet, has, for the most part, wiped out a once thriving industry.

Among the many stories LaRosa pounded out at the Daily News, the one that will  live in infamy is his front-page splash about John Lennon’s fatal shooting at the Dakota, while working the late shift (midnight-8 a.m.), a shift known to news types as the ``lobster shift.’’

Despite his success in the television industry, LaRosa tells me that he feels very lucky to have worked at two great jobs at such great places. ``Although I’ve worked longer at CBS than The Daily News, I consider myself a newspaperman and writer at heart.’’

LaRosa graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School and Fordham University and attended Columbia University, where he did graduate work as a Revson Fellow.  He lives in Park Slope.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 3, 2012

 

 

Mary Lou Foy, Former Washington Post Picture Editor Now Watching Fires Instead of Covering Them

Mary Lou  with Czarina, Rudiger, and Kika in a Maryland park.

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Mary Lou Foy, a National/Style picture editor at the Washington Post until 2006, when she accepted the company buyout, shot me an email to say she is now living in Parker, Colorado ``watching the fires and thanking my lucky stars I'm not having to go cover them!!  ‘’

Among the pleasures of her new country existence since leaving the big city life in the dust, is her enjoyment of horses and coyotes.

Foy was a picture editor at the  Post  from 1990 to 2006. Before moving to the nation’s capital, she was a photographer at the Miami Herald, where she served as a part-time picture editor.  In fact, it was at the Herald that Foy distinguished herself in becoming the paper’s first female photojournalist in 1976.  She was also the first photojournalist to be hired by the Gainesville Sun in 1971. Three years later, she found herself in South Florida working for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

Foy   graduated from Auburn University in 1966 with a degree in journalism; and later attended graduate school at the University of Florida, where she completed her course work in journalism and environmental engineering .

She has been the recipient of a number of awards during her celebrated career, including the Samuel Mellor Award in 1984, the Joseph Costa Award in 1998, the Morris Berman NPPA Citation in 2003, and twice received the NPPA's President's Award in 1984 and 1986.

Foy served as president of the National Press Photographers Association in 1992.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 2, 2012

Former Denver Post Columnist, Jim Carrier, Threw Caution to the Wind and Simply Sailed Away

Amy Carrier's picture of her Dad, Jim Carrier, on his most recent Italian sailing adventure.

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Before being pushed out by the editor of the Denver Post in 1997, veteran journalist Jim Carrier [See bio] claims he had one of the best jobs in America, when he was able to roam the American West as a columnist, using the stage name the ``Rocky Mountain Ranger.’’ The assignment allowed him to travel 500,000 miles, witness 7,665 sunsets, while wearing 87 different pairs of Levis. Nice work if you can get it.

Rather than accept a less fulfilling role at the Post, where he knew he would just be miserable and rot away into oblivion,  the award-winning journalist, author, civil rights activist and entrepreneur simply cashed in his chips, spent his annuity on a sailboat, and ``sailed away, quite literally.’’

Shortly after leaving the Post in 1997, Carrier plunked money down on a sailboat, named it Ranger, and set out to sail the Pacific. In 2002, he hit the waves again, this time sailing across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean. His enthusiasm for navigation and telling a compelling story, in fact, led him to create a technology company, IntelliTours, which creates GPS-guided audio tours.

Though he certainly has had his ups and downs since throwing caution to the wind, Carrier tells me he’s happily starving in Madison Wisconsin, where his wife is getting her PhD.

``When blogging made writing cheap,’’ Carrier said, ``I took up the lucrative field of documentary filmmaking.’’ In 2005, after losing his home and office in Hurricane Katrina, he wrote, directed and narrated, ``Faces in the Water’’, a documentary film featured in the Civil Rights Memorial Center.  The film documents the sacrifices, tragedies and triumphs of the human rights revolution that transformed the South and the nation. It was made for the Southern Poverty Law Center about the Maya Lin Civil Rights Memorial.

So passionate is this former Denver Post columnist bout civil rights activism, that he developed Tolerance.org,  which has won two Webbys for activist Web sites.

Carrier has authored ten books, including, ``A Ship and the Storm’’   and ``A Travelers Guide to The Civil Rights Movement ; other articles written by him have appeared in the National Geographic, the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Orion and Cruising World magazines. In addition, his reporting has been broadcast on PBS, NPR and Wisconsin Public Radio, and included in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2010.

Before landing at the Denver Post in 1984, Carrier was managing editor of the Rapid City (SD) Journal from 1979 through 1984 and a broadcast editor, writer, news editor, and correspondent at the Associated Press from 1971 through 1979.

Most recently, Carrier is spending most of his time writing a book, making a film, volunteering at the River Food Pantry, a nonprofit  in Madison Wisconsin, including a couple of nongovernmental associations that he started.  He’s already created a film school, the Wisconsin Film School  and an environmental group, Wild Warner. 

Carrier lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife, Trish O’Kane, a journalist and PhD candidate in environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin.  In addition to being an avid banjo player, he enjoys cooking.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 2, 2012