On the record with Deborah Howlett

Governor Corzine’s new communications director, Deborah Howlett, took some time during her brief hiatus to answer our questions about her new role, the job offer and her transition from reporter to public servant. The Q&A conversation was on the record, but is not a verbatim transcript of the interview.

How do you go from aggressively covering the governor to aggressively defending the governor?

First of all, if his communications staff is defending him, there’s a problem. What he’s trying to do shouldn’t need defending.

And that’s not why he hired me.

How would you describe the transition?

It’s a strange transition to go from covering the governor to being his director of communications. I might have looked at it differently if the job was that of the press secretary rather than his communications director. The press secretary speaks for the Governor and is his voice on issues. I can imagine it was a harder transition for Tony Snow to make.

As his communications director, I will be focused more on long term strategic thinking and management of his communications staff. That is not to say I won’t be involved in other things, but the Governor has two competent spokespersons in Lilo Stainton and Jim Gardner who speak for him, and they will continue to do that.

When did you resign from the Star Ledger?

As a practical matter, I left on Monday (2/18) of last week. On Monday, I had a conversation with Jim Willse and offered my resignation. I thought it was important for me to give them two weeks notice. I did not want to leave them shorthanded. I was willing to write obits or scrub toilets. I was willing to pitch in and do whatever so they could get someone in that position. Obviously, I knew I wouldn’t be writing about the governor anymore.

So practically speaking my last day was Monday of last week. I was at my desk on Tuesday but then Jim Willse and I had another conversation and came to the conclusion that my tenure with the Star Ledger should end. I knew my byline was never going to appear again, but it made sense for me to resign immediately. For technical reasons (payroll purposes), my employment with the Ledger ended on Wednesday (2/20).

When did you first interview for the position?

The whole process took about five days. That’s all it was.

On Tuesday (2/12), I got the call to see if I was interested and I thought, What? By the next day, I thought, wait a minute maybe this isn’t so crazy? I interviewed with Bradley Abelow on Thursday. I interviewed with the Governor on Friday. I got the offer over President’s day weekend.

Both sides knew if this was going to work, it had to happen fast.

How long have you been covering the Governor?

I want to set the record straight. There’s been some reports that I have been covering the Governor for three years. Actually, I have only been working at the Ledger for three years. My first day was December 1, 2004. Ironically, the Governor threw his hat into the ring and announced he was running for governor the day after I started on December 2, 2004.

When I first started at the Ledger, I was covering politics. That means I covered the legislature, the governor’s race, mostly Forrester. I also did the Kean-Menendez Senate race and some legislative stuff in general. My beat was never the governor, that was Jeff Whelan’s. Then in December of 2006, Jeff moved and that’s when I started covering the governor as my beat.

On the recent coverage…

For the last month, I rarely wrote about the Governor. For the most part, he has been doing his town meetings and talking about debt restructuring, otherwise known as asset monetization. And that’s falls under Joe Donahue. Joe has always covered that beat. I have been covering the Presidential election and the upcoming primary for about a month and a half.

I know there’s been a lot of speculation that maybe I asked to cover the Presidential race because I knew I was planning to make a move, but in reality, I had an opportunity and I took it. If you really think about, if you had a choice between covering the Presidential race or asset monetization, what would you choose? That’s all it was.

On her new role…

I’m sort of surprise how quickly this happened. For 24 years, I have been a reporter and I loved it. I love reporting and it’s all I ever wanted to do since I was 12 years old. I could have done it for another 20 years.

I never really wanted to be an editor but I thought I would always stay in the business. When Tom Moran left and his column opened up, I threw my hat in the ring for that. I was not actually looking for this. But when the offer came, it sounded really interesting and I thought it could be just as interesting and challenging as my job at the Ledger. Now I am looking forward to it and am really excited about the opportunity and challenges.

Howlett on protecting her sources…

I want to emphasize one point about the ethical questions you raised in your series. I want to tell you and stress to you that whoever I talked to as a representative of the Ledger, the promises I made to them, I will honor them to the grave. To be candid, if I were to talked to someone in my new position and revealed what someone else had said to me, I am not sure anyone would ever trust me again.

I will protect a source the same way as if I was being threatened with contempt of court and jail time. It is not going to happen (divulging a source). That is sacrosanct with me. On the rare times, when I used confidential sources, I will never share who they are, or use what they said to me.

And for that matter, I will not share any conversations I had with others while I worked at the Ledger or the things I learned there. What happens at the Star Ledger stays at the Star Ledger.

In case you missed it, read Deb Holtz' five-part series on the revolving door between journalism and politics:

• Trading Places: Post-employment ethics for the journalist-turned -spokesperson

• Finding a workable solution to a century old practice

• Are former sources protected when reporters cross over?

• The state of the NJ news industry. Is the red ink at newspapers forcing reporters to jump ship?

• Protecting the public interest: An inside look at newspapers covering the Garden State