The Hill: An alumni roster to envy and an example of journalistic excellence
This is one in a series of op-eds celebrating The Hill's 30th anniversary.
For three decades, The Hill newspaper has been an integral part of the Washington scene, the place to go for the latest news from Congress, the White House and the campaign trail.
But The Hill’s contributions to the larger project of covering government, policy and politics go beyond the daily grind newsroom. They expand and compound with the impressive roster of alumni who have left The Hill for substantial posts elsewhere in the media ecosystem.
The host of a national political television show. The Washington bureau chief of a major American newspaper. The political columnist at The Washington Post. A senior editor at The Associated Press. Top congressional and political reporters at outlets like CNN, ABC News, NBC News and The Miami Herald. They all once toiled in the same buzzy, exciting newsroom that gave me a home for so many years.
When I interviewed for my first position at The Hill, I recall admitting my deepest fears to the man who would become my boss: I had no journalism degree, no Rolodex full of prominent members of Congress on whom to call, and no fancy pedigree. How would I fit into a newsroom that held so many talented would-be colleagues?
That boss, Bob Cusack, must have seen something in me. He and other supervisors like Ian Swanson molded whatever clay I provided into a better reporter, a better writer and a more thoughtful person. When I had a bad idea, they shot it down without mercy or malice. When I had a good idea, they found the right balance between shepherding me and letting me roam free.
The same has been true for so many of my predecessors, coworkers and successors. We have had both the guidance we need and the freedom to branch out in search of stories that set us — the individual, the newsroom as a whole — apart.
Journalism, at its core, is about relationships: The relationship between a reporter and a reader. The relationship between a reporter and a source. The relationship between a reporter and the beat, city or landscape they cover.
I have had the privilege of working in some fantastic newsrooms throughout my career, alongside award-winners and legends. But I have never and will never forge the kind of close relationships that nourished a younger me and encouraged the older me as much as those I formed across eight years at The Hill.
There are many ways to judge a workplace. The two that have impressed me most about The Hill are the people who have blossomed during and after their time in the newsroom, and the people who remain to anchor the growth of so many others.
Reid Wilson is a former staff writer and national correspondent for The Hill. Currently he is founder and editor of Pluribus News.