Maryland Matters founding editor Josh Kurtz, still at work in Annapolis last week after 30 years on the job. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
On the first day of the first General Assembly session I covered, in 1996, Gov. Parris Glendening (D) walked into the basement press room of the State House — affectionately known as The Pit — with a tray of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. As soon as Glendening left, veteran scribe Lou Panos, with Patuxent Publishing, picked up his phone — we all had land lines then — and pretended to call his editor.
“Yeah,” Panos barked into the receiver. “Hold the hatchet job on Glendening.”
Minutes later, Todd Spangler of the Associated Press introduced me to the wonders of the canteen in the State House basement. “First of 90 hot dogs,” he said, taking his first bite.
All these years later, I’m happy to report that the fare in the State House canteen is far healthier and better.
I only wish, with all due respect to my friends and fellow practitioners, I could say the same about the state of state and local government coverage in this state.
But this is what we are doing here.
When I walked into The Pit on that January day in 1996, the room was stuffed with reporters from all over the state: There were two from the AP, two from the Journal newspapers of Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, which no longer exist. There were reporters from newspapers in Hagerstown and Frederick and Westminster and Annapolis and Southern Maryland. There was Panos. The Daily Record had a reporter, as it does today, but so did the Baltimore Business Journal. So did The Washington Times. Maryland Public Television had three reporters in the Pit every day, along with an equivalent number of camera operators cluttering the room.
I was there for the old Gazette newspapers, which were growing as I arrived, expanding from Montgomery County into Prince George’s, Frederick, a sliver of Carroll, and eventually into Southern Maryland. In short order, our presence in Annapolis went from just me to another reporter, and then another. The Gazette, of course, also no longer exists — killed off by Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post.
And how could I forget the freelance reporter named Joe who seemed all but homeless, commandeering my phone on a regular basis, stashing his jockey shorts in my filing cabinet, and bumming cash off of everybody?
When I gazed down the basement hallway to the offices of The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun back then, I saw a Murderer’s Row of top-flight reporters. The Post had three in the State House on a regular basis. The Sun had five or six, plus specialists who made cameo appearances — it was hard to tell how many were there, because they spilled out of that relatively small space like the folks in the stateroom scene from “A Night at the Opera.” I admired them all.
And let’s not forget — the Post and Sun had robust suburban bureaus, with scores of reporters between them, all over the state. They competed against each other in Anne Arundel and Howard counties. The Sun had a full-time reporter in Rockville. The Post kept an eye on Baltimore. And on and on and on.
Now, the local news you find in these two former legacy media heavyweights could fit on a matzoh. The number of print outlets with reporters stationed regularly in Annapolis is down to a handful. Those suburban bureaus I talked about have been decimated, if they exist at all.
And we have it better than many other states! The paucity of media coverage of state and local government in Maryland — and across the country — has long been described as a crisis. I could get into the reasons why, and what’s lost when media scrutiny of our elected officials and institutions crumbles, but that would fill up too much space.
Yet that’s precisely why I started Maryland Matters several years ago.
I had noticed that nonprofit websites were launching and succeeding in a variety of states and wondered whether the model would work here. But I didn’t really have a clue about how to build it and get it going. Getting from that point to where we are today, as I prepare to take my leave from Maryland Matters, has been quite the adventure, to say the least — and nothing I ever anticipated.
In the beginning
I’ve written frequently about how the late Keith Haller offered to help in 2014 when I mentioned that I was interested in launching a website to cover Maryland government and politics, and what a big role he played in getting us off the ground. We began meeting regularly that summer, and in 2015, Lou Peck frequently joined us.
Keith had a lot of grandiose ideas, but Lou, in addition to being a stellar journalist, proved to be pretty adept at planning fundraising events and making sure people made good on their financial commitments. I’ll be forever grateful for their friendship and guidance.
We were a from-the-bootstraps operation from the start, and remain so to this day. Only today we seem to know what we’re doing. In the earlier days, except for the journalism, I’m not sure that we did.
We began raising money in the fall of 2016, launched as a blog on March 1, 2017, hired our first full-time staffers at the beginning of 2018, and took off from there. I came on board full-time in mid-2018, after planning, launching and running the operation while I held a full-time editing job with another publication on Capitol Hill. That is surely the definition of crazy.
There are so many people I need to thank for taking this journey with me through the years.
We had a half dozen or so planning meetings around the state with a rolling cast of characters in 2014, 2015 and 2016. If you were one of the journalists, operatives, civic leaders, activists, political sages or aspiring pols who attended any of them, thank you. Thanks to Andrew Friedson, now a Montgomery County councilmember, who I believe came up with the name Maryland Matters at one of those meetings.
If you have hosted a fundraiser for us, thank you. Thanks especially to Diana and Bill Conway, who hosted two in their beautiful home. If you have spoken at one of our fundraisers — in person or virtually — thank you. Congressman Jamie Raskin spoke at a few. Once, when he was unable to leave Capitol Hill in time, he sent his beloved son Tommy to speak in his stead — a beautiful gesture and a poignant memory.
If you have attended one of our fundraisers, or been a donor at any time, thank you.
Seek out the helpers
Some donations came at critical moments and literally kept us afloat. Our first big contribution came from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation in Baltimore, in the fall of 2017, when I had just been blogging for a few months. Jane Brown, the foundation’s executive director, is a former journalist. I was stunned that she had so much faith in us then, and she has been a resolute supporter ever since. Bless you, Jane!
The David and June Trone Family Foundation was also a major donor at an important time, before David Trone was elected to Congress, matching our contributions just as we were starting to figure out how to raise money. Lou Peck helped make this happen for us, and Ed Cooper, a politically savvy top executive at Total Wine & More, was our conduit.
The Horizon Foundation in Columbia has been a consistent supporter, dating back to 2019, expanding our health care coverage just a month before the dawn of COVID-19. Thanks to Glenn Schneider, a health care advocate whom I’ve known for more than a quarter century, and his colleagues, for approaching us and believing in us.
The mind-blowing generosity of Angie Cannon and Ed Hatcher, who endowed our “Climate Calling” series, also came at a pivotal moment in our history, and enabled some of the most vital and in-depth pieces we’ve ever done. They are climate warriors and beautiful human beings.
But the most transformative relationship in our evolution was with the leaders of States Newsroom, Chris Fitzsimon and Andrea Verykoukis, which started just as they were getting their amazing nationwide nonprofit news organization off the ground.
Chris and Andrea got in touch with me fairly early in 2018, when Maryland Matters was just a year old, and said they wanted to discuss the media landscape in Maryland. I was dense; I initially looked at them as potential competitors. Only after a few conversations did I realize that they were seeking a partnership and were willing to make a substantial investment in Maryland Matters, even as they were starting to build their impressive network of state-based websites.
That commitment enabled me to finally dedicate myself full-time to Maryland Matters, and it was the start of a beautiful relationship with a growing news organization that continues to inspire me to this day.
After four years as a States Newsroom grantee, Chris and Andrea and Maryland Matters leadership, eyeing the imminent arrival of a very well-funded nonprofit news outlet in Baltimore, decided we should fully become part of their organization. And that’s a decision I’m thankful for every day. It’s provided us with a level of stability and myriad resources and talents to draw from. So many people at States Newsroom, beyond Andrea and Chris, have been invaluable allies and sounding boards, especially Mary Cornatzer, Andrea Shaw, Nelle Dunlap, Jane Norman, Breanne Porter and Dustin Burleson.
My incredible colleagues
Before Maryland Matters became fully part of States Newsroom, we were guided by a board of directors, led by Adrianne Flynn. I had the great pleasure of handpicking the board: Charly Carter, Sebastian Johnson, Leonard Lucchi, Lou Peck, and Terrell Boston Smith, in addition to Adrianne. No one could ask for a better group of advisers. My only regret: None is independently wealthy!
We have had a splendid group of interns through the years: Ana Faguy, Elijah Pittman, Kaanita Iyer, Meghan Thompson, Nene Narh-Mensah, and Samantha Hawkins. Ana, Kaanita, Meghan and Samantha are making their way through the tricky world of modern journalism. Nene is in graduate school, Elijah is still in college. If I had half the brain, poise, talent and moxie at age 20 that Elijah has today, who knows where I’d be? One day, we’ll all be working for Elijah.
And what can I say about my Maryland Matters colleagues, past and present?
The current crew — editor Steve Crane, and reporters Bryan Sears, Will Ford and Dani Brown — are incredible grinders, smart and savvy and cynical, dedicated to their craft, and fun to be around, the very people you’d want with you in a foxhole.
Our first two hires at the beginning of 2018 were Bruce DePuyt (Employee No. 1) and Bill Zorzi. They provided us with a jolt of credibility: Bruce, the well-known TV reporter and talk show host whose transition to print reporting was seamless; Zorzi, the icon, whose work at the Sun I so admired when I first started in Annapolis in 1996. Being an absentee editor at first, having these two well-respected and highly competent veterans on the beat provided great comfort.
In steady succession, we added, over the next couple of years and in approximate order, Angela Breck, Meg Thale, Danielle Gaines, Margie Hyslop, Hannah Gaskill, Elizabeth Shwe, and Bennett Leckrone. I love and value them all, but wanted to say something about Meg and Danielle in particular.
Meg, my good friend since I was 17 years old, was our publisher for 4 1/2 years until we became a part of States Newsroom, keeping us financially solvent and keeping me sane and on the straight and narrow. I can never thank her enough.
Danielle was the best hire I ever made in 20 years as an editor, the most well-rounded journalist I’ve ever worked with. She had an unmatched work ethic, a vision for making Maryland Matters better that I fully bought into, a great ability to mentor younger reporters, and an incredible eye for detail, both in the literary sense and the visual. I can never thank her enough, either. If you miss seeing Danielle’s byline, you should subscribe to the nightly newsletter she writes, Evening Wrap, summarizing the best coverage from the 40 States Newsroom outlets across the country.
Since I wrote last week that I’d be stepping away from Maryland Matters, I’ve been showered with praise. It’s gratifying, of course, though I’ve been almost overwhelmed and embarrassed by all the accolades. I hope laying out this roster of co-conspirators is a reminder of how many people have dedicated their lives to Maryland Matters over the years — and how I’m depending on others to carry the torch.
I’m also mindful that my departure stands in stark contrast to my dear wife Caryl’s recent retirement from the Prince George’s County Public Schools, where she was all but kicked to the curb thanks to a vengeful, capricious principal and an inflexible, misguided bureaucracy, and a system that discourages creativity. She’s gotten over it; I’m still seething.
‘Detectives for the people’
But it’s outrage over injustices and cruelties large and small that keeps me going as a journalist, and I know that’s true for plenty of my colleagues. My mentor in this business, Wayne Barrett, used to say that reporters are “detectives for the people.”
“There is also no other job where you get paid to tell the truth,” he once wrote. “Other professionals do sometimes tell the truth, but it’s ancillary to what they do, not the purpose of their job.”
Some of the great joys of covering the same beat for so long are the inevitable bonds you have with your readers, and I’ll miss that. So while I’m doling out thank-you’s, let me thank you all for reading Maryland Matters, for donating, and for all your encouragement and feedback. I hope you’ll keep reading, and hope you’ll continue to support us.
And I hope you’ll stay in touch! I’m taking a break for a while but I don’t plan on disappearing altogether. Please drop a line any time to say hi, to vent, to gossip, to convey important information, and to help me figure out what to do next. My personal email is joshkurtzw92@gmail.com.
I enter this next phase of my life with nothing but gratitude. For my final words, I’ll let the great Lou Rawls do the talking for me: