Graduate of the renowned Harvard University, Diane Cardwell graced her presence with the young, aspiring journalists of NYAJB on Saturday, October 20 th.
Currently the City Hall Borough Chief of the prestigious New York Times, she discussed her trials and tribulations of her journalism career. Growing up in a struggling middle class family residing on the Upper West Side, she was destined to fulfill her father’s dream of becoming a doctor. Nevertheless, she decided to follow her own path and study American History at Harvard, which she admits helps contribute to her successful career.
Editorial assistant in a greenhorn magazine Seven Days , she took up multiple roles because of the lack of staff. When that magazine folded, she, along with Russell Simmons and others, founded Vibe magazine. The original intention of the magazine was to analyze and promote hip hop music, much like the esteemed rock-n-roll magazine, The Rolling Stone. Soon afterwards, she noticed that the magazine was doing more of the latter than the former. “It was going in a direction that I wasn’t crazy about,” she said.
After a while of nickel-and-diming to make ends meet, and enduring the long application process which was required to be a part of the New York Times, she achieved what others can’t; she became a part of the New York Times. Her job was to assign stories, but she soon realized that she wanted more. She wanted a hands-on experience in journalism.
“A journalist should be willing to ask for that you want,” she says. She demonstrated this when she walked up to her boss and requested to fill the vacant position in the Metropolitan Section of the Times. She wanted to report even though she had no experience at it. At first getting small jobs such as press conferences, and random interviews with common people on the street, she soon moved up to writing human interest stories.
In 2004, which was the year of elections, she covered the Democratic primaries. She also travelled to swing state Missouri to talk to people about their political views and which way they were voting that year. However exciting that may sound, she still wished to do more human interest stories. “I want to know what hopes, fears, and motivates [the average New Yorker].”
One of the few African American people working at the Times, she admits to being “tokenized”. Instead of looking at this in a negative sense, she understood that she was the only one who could answer the questions they asked because of her race. “I was the only one who could do it.”
Today, she succeeds in her career. She lives up to her title as the City Hall Borough Chief. She loves what she does, and can’t imagine herself working at another newspaper.
When asked what she sees herself doing in the future, she responded, “I wanna keep writing.”