I have been writing since I was six years old (when I published my first "book" in my upstairs bedroom). For twenty years, I applied my talents to communicating the truth, as I could understand it, through broadcast news. Not long ago, I fulfilled a life-long dream of writing a novel--"Berman's Lament"--which recounts much of what I learned about life and the news business. Now, I've written a non-fiction account of the news industry with some tips on how we can get the most out of news media entitled "Engaging News Media." Like Berman's Lament and most of the writing I did in my broadcast career, it tries to connect our essential need to know--about ourselves and the world that comes at us in increasingly rapid and complex ways--and how we can use today's news media to help us answer the questions and understand what it all means. I certainly don't have it all figured out; I'm just trying to make a small contribution to the collective human consciousness that has grappled with the mysteries of existence for thousands and thousands of years.

Six years ago I stepped out of professional broadcasting and earned a Ph.D. in Mass Communications at Syracuse University;s Newhouse School of Public Communications. It was an invigorating experience that allowed me to examine closely the industry I have worked in for so long and what difference any of the "product" pumped out by news media might make in society.