“Sometimes, when the sun goes down, so does the productivity,” says Solomon, shown clowning around in the newsroom.
By DYLAN HART
USFSP Student Reporter
Josh Solomon likes the jolt of adrenaline.
He played basketball as a center and power forward in high school and remains a fan of the New York Knicks. He received his pilot’s license in his last week of high school but hasn’t flown in years. He rides a motorcycle in his free time.
And as the Tampa Bay Times’ Pasco County crime reporter, Solomon loved the thrill of pushing a hard news story out the door.
“I still like writing the crazy crime story on deadline,” said Solomon, 27. “It’s fun. It’s a rush. It’s a personal challenge.”
But above all, Solomon wants to do the right thing.
He sports a “Westfield, N.J.,” tattoo on his left forearm, in honor of the town where he grew up. He picked up a journalism class in high school and found his niche writing and reporting, especially since he loved to ask questions.
“I was always kind of a pain in the butt,” he said.
While Solomon’s interests may draw him to a high-octane style of reporting, his childhood drew him to civic skepticism. His father was a member of the board of education, and local government “was dinner table talk.”
Listening to his father, he said, “I always felt like my peers were getting screwed.”
Taking his experience from high school, he attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He interned at CBS News in the summer of 2013 and came to the Times in 2014 after graduating from Medill.
Solomon started at the Pasco office in Wesley Chapel, reporting on crime and breaking news.
“I loved the job in Pasco,” he said. “I was driving a lot, I was outside all day and visiting crime scenes.”
But while Solomon enjoyed the excitement of covering crime and visiting courts, he wanted to do something bigger and more impactful, something that would draw on his childhood skepticism of government.
He twice applied for the job covering City Hall in St. Petersburg and got it in November.
When Solomon isn’t covering city government, he focuses on covering the courts in a similar fashion – as a place to examine systemic legal issues.
A court story is among Solomon’s proudest works – a September 2018 piece about a Florida doctor who was sued for malpractice and for years made a principled stand against the suit over anything else.
Solomon said that the first two or three drafts of that story were “failed attempts at an accountability story,” a style that he praises colleague Mark Puente for executing well. But the story naturally developed into a strong narrative.
“What I liked is that different people saw different things in the story,” Solomon said. “Some people saw (the doctor) as a hero; others saw him as a crazy person. It’s about perspective.”
Although crime and courts were his first assignments and government is his new focus, Solomon considers himself a “jack of all trades.”
Press passes for local Trump, Clinton and Sanders rallies are pinned to his cubicle wall, alongside a press pass for the launch of the SpaceX-8 rocket. One of his weirdest stories involved a topless woman running through the Sanders rally.
Some of his most rewarding work, however, has been covering three hurricanes that hit Florida — Hermine in 2016, Irma in 2017 and Michael in 2018.
“Even though it’s telling the story of someone’s tragedy, it’s so much fun,” Solomon said. “It’s about telling the story of what happens after the storm; it’s an opportunity to help people.”
Although Solomon has been covering City Hall for only two months, he has big aspirations for his role in the city.
“I’m trying to write issues stories,” he said. “I’m not creating the narrative, but I’m trying to push the story along. I want to find more high-level stories and work them out.”
Solomon has a cordial relationship with City Council members. He waves to them as they pass his desk at City Hall, and he makes small talk with them about what he’s writing. But he knows that journalism and government are inherently at odds.
“Just because I write a tough story doesn’t mean I can’t say hi in the hallway,” Solomon said. “Some people might view it as a cat-and-mouse game, but it’s not. I want the same things they want – a better St. Petersburg.”
While Solomon knows there are “tough stories” to be written and issues to uncover, he knows that his relationship with the government is one that can make positive change.
After all, his Times profile says that he is in journalism because he believes “the truth can touch hearts and change the world.”