You might not have known the late Mal Leary, but you benefited from his work.
Mal was a journalist. The “dean of the State House press corps,” we called him. He was relentless with Augusta politicians and bureaucrats – in a nice, positive way. He ran his own news operation. It had different names at different times the past 50 years. He moved to Augusta in 1973 and jumped in.
He covered State House governmental and political matters every day – for radio (daily), newspapers (occasionally) and TV stations (now and then). He covered at least seven governors, numerous U.S. senators, congressional representatives and at least 25 different Maine Legislatures.
Mal Leary mattered.
You may have heard him over the past few decades on Maine Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. He was perhaps famous for his signature “closing” in each story: “I’m Mal Leary.”
I met Mal in 1973. I was a Scarborough High School student. My history teacher/baseball coach, Packy McFarland, had a college roommate from his Bowdoin days, James Longley, who was going to run for governor as an independent in 1974. We were taking a high school civics field trip to the State House to meet Longley at some legislative hearing. Mal was covering the hearing.
Afterward, Packy greeted Longley, who then introduced us to Mal. Longley said: “This guy’s a reporter,” he said. “He’s tough!”
True.
I met Mal again in December 1979. I’d just graduated from UMaine Orono, having studied journalism. I got hired by the Associated Press to work at the State House. The State House “press corps” was located on the fourth floor in a really really large closet with 10-foot by 12-foot “compartments” hosting AP, UPI, Davis Rawson of the Bangor Daily News, Nancy Perry of the Portland Press Herald, Mal Leary, and occasionally reporters from the Lewiston and Biddeford newspapers.
The AP was similar to Mal Leary. We were both everywhere, at all events. We did not do deep 10,000-word features. We did short quick 500-, or maybe 2,500-word stories.
I was young, green and stupid. And worse, I didn’t know it.
Mal did, and he took me under his wing. Here are 10 things Mal Leary taught me (or tried to).
MAL LEARY’S 10 RULES FOR GOOD REPORTING
Rule 1: “Don’t take your interview subjects at their word. They all have the incentive to exaggerate and obfuscate.”
Rule 2: “See Rule 1.”
Rule 3: “It’s not about you. It’s about your readers, listeners and viewers and what THEY want to know. Go easy at press conferences on the ‘I, me, my …’
Rule 4: “If at first you don’t succeed, be a pest. If someone doesn’t answer a question, ask it again, and again and again. Don’t be a cream puff.”
Rule 5: “Always be a fair person. Maine is one small town. Write good stories. Remember you will probably run into your story subject in the cafeteria, or laundromat, or at K-Mart (Note to millennials – K-Marts were the Walmarts of the 1970s).”
Rule 6: “Don’t guess. Ever. Show me a factual mistake, and I’ll show you a reporter who was too lazy to double-check something. Is it Gov. Joseph T. Brennan? Is it Cincinnatti? Is a gallon 16 ounces? Nope, nope and nope. Don’t guess.”
Rule 7: “Do not make stuff up. You go to the Meddybemps Board of Selectmen meeting and forget to get citizen quotes on the ordinance passed requiring dogs to wear pants in public, follow up. Go back. Interview citizens. Don’t fabricate. That is not why you went into journalism.”
Rule 8. “Nothing wrong with short and sweet. Don’t feel the need to always write a 3,000 story. ‘Who, what, when and where’ is still good.” And: “A 750-word story is a 3,000-word story with a good copy editor.”
Rule 9: “You can’t be friends with your subject. The governor will ask you to come over to the Blaine House to shoot pool. Don’t. Only go in groups. Hard to cover people seriously when they are your drinking buddies.”
Rule 10: “Make us all proud. Don’t be average. If you get handouts, read them. If it’s gobbledygook, research it. Make some phone calls. Find out. Educate yourself. Let people know you are smart.”
If Mal Leary was the most conscientious reporter in the room, Dave Rawson of the Bangor Daily News was the funniest. On my last day with AP, I was headed to law school in 1980 and asked Dave if he had any advice. “Be yourself,” he said.
“Unless you can be Mal Leary. In which case, be Mal Leary.”
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