In the Blood

My father began his days in newspapers as a ten-year-old with a small camera chasing spot news in his neighborhood and the near-beyond of Hillside, New Jersey in 1950 and still keeps his hand in it today. I think I was about twelve when I first aimed my solid little Nikon EM and had my first news picture published in the Asbury Park Press. I learned the trade of journalism at home as if I was learning how to throw a baseball. It was only natural.

Dad went on to become an overnight staff photographer on the late, great Newark Evening News during the picture-rich 1960s, a stringing writer for The New York Times and a staff reporter on the Sunday Asbury Park Press in the ‘70s before leaving the trade for PR. And even then he never truly left newspapers. For almost 25 years he was the Jersey columnist for the Irish Echo before they thought local coverage was a 20th century idea. He still writes a news column about Irish Jersey today and keeps his news ear to the police scanner at home. The desire to know has never left him. Dad is the truest, always-curious newsman I have ever known.

Much to his chagrin I followed closely in his footsteps. He dreamed of a Notre Dame lawyer and got a Jersey newsman, though proud nonetheless. And I took what I learned as a shooter on the streets of Hudson County in the rough late 80s and early 90s and rolled it into an international career/adventure in journalism.

These days I am not chasing the stories in Iraq but rather working to make local government work well. I couldn’t be luckier.

And I have a brother, twelve years younger, who now has the news blood kicking in. Young Patrick Lowney, a student at URI, is now interning at The Newport Daily News. Today he had his first byline in a daily.

Congratulations, Paddy. And remember there is always a brilliant, fun story in the police blotter.