(Updated April 8, 2008)

Now a senior fellow for a Seattle-based transportation think tank, Matt Rosenberg cut his teeth in Chicago politics and journalism. While attending Northwestern University, he spent the summer of 1977 working for a prominent civic organization battling political corruption in Chicago: The Better Government Association. As an Assistant to the Chief Investigator, Matt did public records research, investigative photography, and joined the undercover team of the Mirage Tavern, a joint investigative project of the BGA and The Chicago Sun-Times. Undertaken to document long-standing complaints from small businesses of shakedowns by city, county and state building inspectors, and in response to concerns about accountant-driven tax fraud that was shortchanging government coffers, The Mirage resulted in a month-long, Pulitzer-finalist Sun-Times series, a book, and an episode of "60 Minutes."

Less than a year later, while still attending Northwestern, Matt headed up a Get Out The Vote effort in seven precincts of Chicago's 48th Ward for an independent aldermanic challenger to the city's notorious Democratic Machine. The candidate, Marion Kennedy Volini, was elected to The Chicago City Council. Matt still remembers being tailed all day on Election Day by an "off duty" Chicago Streets and Sanitation Worker.

After an interlude involving time away from college, Matt resumed his undergraduate education at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and graduated with Dean's List and Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1982. He worked as a paid intern for an Illinois congressman in the nation's capital, and then returned home to Chicago.

Matt began his journalism career in 1983, covering Chicago, suburban and state politics for Lerner (later Pulitzer-Lerner) Newspapers, and writing opinion columns and editorials.

In 1988, he became Director of The O'Hare Citizens Coalition; developing his writing, research, community organizing and advocacy skills during a six-year stint working for 12 municipal governments pushing an ex-urban new airport south of Chicago as an alternative to O'Hare expansion. The position involved extensive media relations with Chicago and national outlets; grassroots outreach; public speaking; legislative lobbying; and corraling academic research on airport development, airport delay and congestion, economics, noise metrics, computer modeling flaws, and the health effects of noise.

Matt worked closely with suburban mayors, city department and legislative staff, citizens, and the media; and emerged as a leader of an alliance of airport noise groups around the United States, providing consulting services and helping coordinate grassroots lobbying of the U.S. House and Senate, leading to passage of legislation to phase-out older "Stage Two" jets.

In the position, he wrote newsletters, legislative bulletins, many daily and community newspaper op-eds in his own name, ghost op-eds, and several commentaries for trade journals. He also helped engineered positive press coverage for his organization on radio, television, newspapers - locally and nationally. Among the national media outlets he helped shape placements with were The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, and CNN. Matt liaised frequently with major-market TV and radio reporters and producers in Chicago, as well as major Chicago daily newspaper beat reporters and opinion columnists, developing strong working relationships and helping his employer's side of a contentious, complicated issue get told in a fair and balanced manner.

Airport planning issues brought Matt to Seattle in 1994. In those days, spunky upstarts like Mark Air actually offered real one-way fares. Matt, his wife, and cat arrived in Seattle on a beautiful spring day. Matt worked for a year as the Executive Director of a government-funded organization advocating positive alternatives to Sea-Tac Airport expansion. In 1995, Matt began working as an independent communications and political consultant, and a year later, with his wife, began raising the first of their two children.

Matt worked on a candidate's King County Council campaign in 1995, helping a challenger come within several percentage points of unseating a long-standing incumbent. Matt served as an assistant media coordinator for Schools First in the successful March, 1996 campaign for voter approval of a Seattle Public Schools maintenance and operations levy.

Throughout the summer and fall of 1996, Matt served as State Media Coordinator for the winning candidate in the wide-open race for Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Terry Bergeson. He handled writing projects and press relations; played a prominent role in shaping the campaign's media strategy; and generated substantial positive coverage for the campaign and candidate statewide; in major newspapers, and on radio and TV.

In 1997, Matt began volunteering for Seattle-based Friends of The Library, writing for the organization's newsletter; advocating for increased library funding to reverse cutbacks in neighborhood library hours; and coordinating a library issues survey of Seattle City Council candidates, for the organization.

In 1998, Matt took on a contract position for Friends of The Library. He helped organize Seattle library supporters and build neighborhood chapters of Friends of The Library in the months prior to voter approval of the landmark $198 million "Libraries For All" capital infrastructure plan (and related bond issue).

In 1998, Matt resumed his work in professional journalism. Matt has written about regional economic development, commercial real estate, personal finance, venture capital, high-technology, e-commerce, personal technology, banking, an array of other business topics; plus parenting, religion, restaurants, travel, and music. Additionally, Matt has written extensively about politics, public policy and political culture, most notably as a regular bi-weekly guest op-ed columnist for The Seattle Times from April of 2001 until May of 2004. Topics have included race relations; education; gun control; foreign policy; consumer culture; technology; the economy; national, state and local politics; and more.

Matt has written for the Puget Sound Business Journal, Washington CEO, Washington Law and Politics, Seattle Magazine, The Seattle Times, Metropolitan Living, Parent Map, Journey (Washington State AAA's magazine), the Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Weekly Standard, National Review Online, and Jewish World Review.

In January of 2004, Matt began his own blog, Rosenblog, providing news and pointed commentary on state, national and international politics and policy; Left Coast political and cultural absurdities; plus consumer, business, economic and leisure topics. After publishing 1,557 blog posts at Rosenblog since January 2004, Matt took a much-need hiatus from the personal site starting in July, 2007. He resumed periodic posts there in April, 2008.

In the summer of 2004, while continuing to ramp up at Rosenblog, Matt also joined a high-traffic national political blog as a Contributing Editor, Red State; where he posted through 2006. In summer 2004 he also joined, and played an especially prominent role until year's end of 2006 at a nationally-recognized regional political blog based in Puget Sound, named Sound Politics. He wrote frequent commentaries for the main site, and with founder Stefan Sharkansky and co-editor Andy MacDonald (now a new media executive with the Seattle Times) helped develop the site's Public Blog. Matt was named Senior Editor of Sound Politics, and helped recruit new talent to the main site as he moved on to other, more financially remunerative pursuits.

In February, 2007 Matt took a senior fellow staff position with a Seattle transportation think tank, where he does research, writing, blogging, Web site editing, media relations, and provides strategic communications counsel.

MORE INFORMATION:

Matt's consulting services.
Matt's online portfolio.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 1, 2005 11:54 AM

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