R

ebecca Blumenstein was edi-
tor in chief of The Michigan 

Daily during her last year on staff 
while at the University. Today, she 
is deputy editor in chief at The 
Wall Street Journal. She started 
her time at the Journal in Detroit 
in 1995 before becoming the Jour-
nal’s China bureau chief from 
2005 to 2009. There, she led the 
team that won the Pulitzer Prize 
in International Reporting in 
2007.

Q: What was your experience 

like working for the Daily and what 
about it do you think was unique?

When I walked into the Daily, I 

didn’t know how to write a head-
line, I didn’t know how to write 
a news story, but I was taught by 
editors who were fellow students 
and it was a remarkable training 
ground for journalism. It really 
worked ... the most amazing thing 
about the Daily — I also met my 
husband there — was how much 
you could grow and learn how to 
do things while working with your 
peers. I never took a journalism 
class and I think it’s better that 
way because you can’t rely on any-
one else; you have to do it yourself. 
The editors were pretty demand-
ing and you worked your way up 
to other possibilities as you proved 
yourself. It was a place of excite-
ment; I don’t think my parents 
understood why I was spending 

so much time at the Daily instead 
of on my academic work. I think 
in retrospect that’s one of the best 
parts of the Daily, that it is inde-
pendent of the University and you 
get out of it what you put into it.

Q: So because, as you said, the 

Daily is completely separate from 
academic work at the University, 
how did you balance those two 
aspects of your life and how has 
that balancing act benefited your 

career?

A: I didn’t sleep much. I took a 

more-than-full course load, which 
in retrospect was silly, and I also 
chose to double major in Econ and 
Political Science through the (Res-
idential College) and I took a class 
there, “Economics of Inequal-
ity,” that really changed my life. I 
didn’t make it easy on myself — I 
would meet friends at the Brown 
Jug at midnight — but something 
about being young and not need-
ing to sleep much helped. 

Q: What advice would you give 

to current Daily staffers and recent 

graduates?

A: I would say that you have 

the advantage and disadvantage 
of being kind of on your own. You 
have to get an internship and have 
the clips and the experience and 
keep building from that. It has 
changed a little as journalism has 

changed because there are fewer 
smaller publications that offer 
internships in the way that there 
were when I was doing it, but there 
are still quite a few. It’s important 
to become a bit of a news junkie. 
It’s helped that I’ve known how to 
cover news stories, talk to people 
dealing with tragedies, and just 
being comfortable reporting on 
a range of things and hopefully 
getting the reporting and writing 
skills. 

Q: You’ve had a variety of 

internships and positions at dif-
ferent publications over the years 
— in places ranging from China to 
Florida to New York City. What 
guided you as you made those 
career decisions that ultimately 

landed you your current position as 
deputy editor in chief at The Wall 

Street Journal?

A: I am from a pretty small 

town in Michigan and I always 
wanted to work in a big newsroom 
where there were people who 
really believed in the work they 
were doing, kind of like the Daily 
was for me. There were some situ-
ations where it was clear I had 
learned as much as I was going to 
and it was time to move on. So as 
far as working at the Journal, it’s 
just been a very stimulating place 
to be from the moment I walked 
in. I am always amazed by the 
level of discussion and challenge 
here, and the nice thing about 
being at a news organization is 
that I’ve had a variety of different 
jobs, but I’ve stayed at this same 
news organization for 20 years.

- EMMA KERR

M

ost people spend their 
college years preparing 

for the job they’ll have after gradu-
ation.

But for Jeremy Peters, a Daily 

alum who now works as a political 
reporter for The New York Times, 
the job overtook the preparation 
while he was still in college — and 
he’s still doing it 16 years later.

During his time at The Michi-

gan Daily, Peters, a 2002 graduate 
of the University, covered the 2000 
presidential campaign as a news 
reporter and editor. Today, he is 
covering the 2016 campaign for the 
Times, with a focus on Republican 
candidates. 

Q: What’s most memorable about 

your time at the Daily?

I was fortunate enough to have 

been at Michigan during a presi-
dential election year — this was 
2000, and so it was when Bush was 
running against Gore and at the 
time Michigan was a very impor-
tant swing state, kind of more so 
than it is now because there was 

actually some hope that Repub-
licans could win it. So the Daily 
would send us out, me and a couple 
other reporters who were assigned 
to the politics beat, to cover these 
campaign events, from Flint, to 
Lansing, all over the state. And we 
would pile into a University-owned 
station wagon or something like 
that with a photographer and head 
out to these big events and it was 
really a great learning experience 
because it’s not all that often that 
college students are able to experi-
ence first-hand a presidential cam-
paign like that and surprisingly, the 
campaigns were very accommo-
dating of Daily reporters who were 
covering it.

Q: What was it like being a stu-

dent reporter, getting your first 

experiences with reporting at these 
campaign events where there are 
a lot of national, professional news 

organizations around?

I guess the thing was, is I always 

— maybe this was arrogant on my 
part, or the youthful inexperience 

of a 20 year old, but I kind of always 
just considered myself to be a pro-
fessional reporter right from the 
get-go, and I kind of expected to be 
treated as such. 

That was the thing that the 

Daily always instilled in me, was 
this sense that what we were doing 
was very important and it was a 
task to be taken very seriously.

Q: Beyond the 2000 campaign, is 

there any news story that stands out 
to you from your time at the Daily?

9/11 happened when my class 

was editors. And I happened to 
be the news editor on duty that 
day, that Tuesday, September 11th. 
And that was certainly a horrify-
ing experience, but also kind of one 
that really, I think, energizes your 
sensibilities as a reporter and really 
requires you to make decisions 
and judgment calls that you really 
never, in a way, never anticipated 
having to do.

And it was also, even more 

importantly, it was an experience 
that showed us we could all work 
together and be the best versions of 
ourselves when the paper and the 
University needed us to be.

- SHOHAM GEVA

Q&A:

with Rebecca 
Blumenstein

RUBY WALLAU/Daily

President Barack Obama speaks to students about raising the minimum wage at the Intramural Building on 
Wednesday, April 2, 2014.

OBAM A GOES BLUE

Q&A: with Jeremy Peters

Managing photo 
editor landed on 
the presidential 
campaign trail

By LEV FACHER

Managing Editor

Fresh out of college and in 

search of a short-term gig as a 
campaign photographer, David 
Katz marched into the Chicago 
campaign office of a young, rela-
tively unknown state senator 
in 2004, armed with a portfo-
lio full of clips from his time as 
The Michigan Daily’s managing 
photo editor.

The campaign manager was 

impressed, and hired Katz on 
the spot. But the push for the 
open U.S. Senate seat was in its 
early stages and tight on cash, so 
Katz and the campaign manager 
struck a deal: He could start as a 
volunteer, and if their candidate 
prevailed in the Democratic pri-
maries on March 16, Katz would 
become a paid staffer.

“I said, ‘That sounds good,’ 

” Katz recalled. “ ‘When do I 
start?’ ”

The manager asked Katz to 

show up the next day. The candi-
date would be at a church on the 
South Side of Chicago.

So he showed up at the 

church, photographed the event 
and followed the candidate to 
his car. The candidate gave him 
a confused look.

“I said, ‘Oh, maybe they didn’t 

tell you,’ ” Katz remembered. 
“But the campaign manager told 
me to photograph you and follow 
you around. He said, ‘Great — 
jump in.’ ”

That was Katz’s first interac-

tion with Barack Obama.

The 
two 
quickly 
became 

friends, spending as many as 14 
hours per day, six days per week 
together on the campaign trail. 
In the years that followed, both 
during Obama’s time as senator 
and as president, their friendship 
prevailed, manifesting in regular 
rounds of golf.

Katz ended up moving to 

Washington, D.C. after Obama’s 
victory to work for the senator, 
before heading west to earn his 
MBA at Stanford.

His time at the White House 

was far from over, however. 
When Obama’s 2008 presiden-
tial campaign kicked into high 
gear, Katz returned as a cam-
paign photographer, chronicling 
the senator as he traveled the 
country.

But as Katz followed Obama 

to Dublin, Ohio, for a campaign 
event that August — barely two 
months away from the general 
election — there was still some-
body he hadn’t met. Katz remem-
bers Obama’s words to this day:

“Senator Biden, this is David 

Katz. He was the photo editor 
of The Michigan Daily, and as a 
Michigan grad, I’m sorry that we 
have to bring him here so close to 
Columbus.”

The 44th president has a fond-

ness for the University, it seems 
— in his seven years in office, he’s 

made three trips to Ann Arbor. 
In 2010, Katz tagged along to see 
the president deliver an address 
to the graduates at Spring Com-
mencement.

“I got to ride on Marine One 

with him and land right next to 
the Big House and point some 
things out as we were in the air, 
like, ‘That’s the Michigan golf 
course, that’s where campus is.’ 
He appreciated those things.”

At that point, Katz was work-

ing in the White House as a 
special assistant to the energy 
secretary. He later became a 
senior policy adviser for manu-
facturing before departing for 
the private sector. The move 
brought him to San Francisco, 
where he currently serves as 
the director of sales at Quid, 
a research and data analytics 
startup.

Wherever his career has taken 

him, though, Katz says the time 
he spent at the Daily has proved 
invaluable.

“Everybody’s used to working 

on deadline and working quick-
ly,” Katz said. “The pace at which 
The Michigan Daily operates is 
similar to the pace of a presiden-
tial campaign.”

All current and former Daily 

staffers know the pace at 420 
Maynard Street can indeed 
be tough to handle. However, 
knowing the prospect of hearing 
the president of the United States 
utter the phrase “The Michigan 
Daily” isn’t entirely out of the 
realm of possibility makes the 
frenetic work environment just 
a bit more manageable.

From 420 Maynard 
to 1600 Pennsylvania

NEWS

Tuesday, September 29, 2015
The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com

2A

Oct. 19, 1893

Frederick Douglass 
speaks at University. 

May 3, 1941

Board “packing” plan 

draws protest.

April 12,1955
Polio Vaccine 

deemed effective.

Oct. 1, 1927

Michigan Stadium opens.

May 25, 1924

Reporters 
interview 

Gandhi.

Oct. 14, 1960

President Kennedy 
announces idea for 

the Peace Corps 
at the Michigan 

Union.

Sept. 26, 1957

Daily staffer reports from inside the newly integrated Little 

Rock Central High School.

April, 1958
Two Daily 
reporters are 

arrested by Batista’s 
police for trying to 
score an interview 
with Fidel Castro.

May 30, 1961

Daily editorial page calls 
for changes in the Office 

of Student Affairs.

