![]() ![]() When I was editor of Crain’s New York Business, our paths crossed from time to time, but it was in working with him over nearly the past decade that I came to understand his commitment to (maybe love of) journalists and good journalism. I first met Dick in 1989 when I was the questioner at a televised debate among the Democratic candidates for mayor: incumbent Ed Koch, eventual winner David Dinkins, comptroller Harrison Goldin, and Dick, who finished third. And Dick saw the impressive return on his investment. Over the last nine years, as director of the Ravitch Fiscal Reporting Program, I’ve welcomed some 900 journalists who have come to New York on Dick’s dime for weeklong deep dives into fiscal policy (budgets, bonds, pensions and tax incentives), local economic coverage (jobs), the Puerto Rican debt crisis, housing and transit.Īfter each session, I ask the attendees to send me the stories that they write showing what they have learned. Members and sponsors make THE CITY possible. Sarah Bartlett, then dean of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, said that if a training program were free, with all expenses paid, the reporters would come. Some people told him journalists weren’t interested in such training. ![]() “He wanted to know everybody’s life story and took genuine delight in every detail I could muster.”Īfter his stint as New York’s lieutenant governor in 20, Dick became appalled by the superficiality of coverage and overall lack of interest among media outlets on the issue of state and city finances and wanted to do something about it. “He wanted to know everything about every one of them,” Hester recalled. ![]() Jere Hester, THE CITY’s first editor-in-chief, remembers visiting Dick’s Fifth Avenue apartment in early 2019 with a printout of a PowerPoint outlining plans for the newsroom.ĭick flipped through the pages quickly until he got to the one listing the journalists who had been hired. Richard Ravitch, who died Sunday at age 89, is being widely and appropriately praised for his roles in helping save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s, rescuing a collapsing transit system in the 1980s and insisting on financial prudence by governments for his whole life.īut Dick (no one ever called him Richard) should be remembered for one more aspect of his life that seems especially important today: He was a steadfast friend of journalists.ĭick was one of the driving forces behind the creation of THE CITY and the initial chair of the board. ![]()
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