Backgrounder: Diane Cardwell
Diane Cardwell.
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Diane Cardwell did not make a sudden decision to pursue journalism. She gradually approached the field, spurred by her interest in editing and writing. Editorial work led her to The New York Times Magazine, then to the newspaper itself. Cardwell found her true calling reporting and writing for the New York Metro Desk. This year, she was promoted to City Hall Bureau Chief. Cardwell is the first African-American woman to hold that post in the paper’s 155-year history.
Cardwell’s coverage of City Hall has earned her a reputation “as a shrewd and sophisticated observer of one of the city’s more curious institutions,” said New York Times Metro Editor Joe Sexton, adding that her work “makes you laugh and cry, which pretty much means she got it just right”.
Cardwell’s promotion to bureau chief, at the start of Mayor Bloomburg’s second term was a victory in the ongoing campaign to diversify the Times’ newsroom. In her new role, Cardwell writes about city politics, education, homelessness and other civic issues. Her writerly voice, which Sexton characterizes as “wise as well as witty, authoritative as well as nuanced, tough as well as tender” lends complexity to her careful coverage of these issues.
Cardwell was born in 1964 and grew up in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. After graduating from Dalton High School, she went on to earn a B.A. in American History from Harvard University. Her first “real” job was as editorial assistant for Seven Days magazine, a current events publication that closed its doors in 1980. In the years that followed, Cardwell worked for Details, Egg, and Vibe magazines, eventually landing a job at The New York Times Magazine.
After gaining experience reporting for the Metro section, writing general assignments and features, Cardwell moved to the Police Bureau, where she covered crimes and investigations. Not too long after that, Cardwell took on the City Council and Brooklyn beats. In 2004, she was given the opportunity to cover the gubernatorial election. “I was fascinated watching the race and seeing how it affected what was going on in government,” she said during a September phone interview with this reporter.
While her reporting has won the respect of editors and readers alike, Cardwell’s journalistic methods are unorthodox. “I don’t look at documents,” she said. Instead, she prefers talking to sources, listening to the tone of their voices and content of their explanations.
The most enjoyable part of her job, Cardwell says, is the opportunity to learn information she would never have been able to discover had she not been a journalist.
SOURCES
Cardwell Nonac Marriage. October 2002. NYTimes.com http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E3DE173BF935A35753C1A9649C8B63
Incremental Change at N.Y. Times. April 2006. http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/060414_prince/
Telephone interview with Diane Cardwell, September 2006
LINK TO CARDWELL’S ARTICLES:
The New York Times Online. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/diane_cardwell/index.html?inline=nyt-per