Charlie Hurt.
Charlie Hurt.
Charlie Hurt's first job newspapering was in Chatham, Virginia. He was 8 years old and the managing editor of a local single-sheet publication he ran with his brother and sister called The Gilmer News and Gossip. Despite warnings by his father Henry Hurt (investigative journalist and former roving editor of the Reader's Digest) not to pursue a career in writing because there's no money in it, there was nothing else he ever wanted to do.
The first job Charlie actually got paid for was at the Danville (Virginia) Register & Bee in the summer of 1993, covering everything from summer storms to fall tobacco auctions. It was there that he learned some of the most profound lessons and basic rules of newspapering from Bonnie Cooper, who was the very fine editor of the paper back then, and Bernard Baker and Robert Benson, who are still there today.
Bitten by the bug, Charlie worked the next summer on the State Desk at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. After finishing Hampden-Sydney College with degrees in English and Political Science in 1995, he headed west and got a temporary internship with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It was during this summer that newspaper reporters in Detroit went on strike.
With a lifelong dream of working for a big city newspaper covering crime, politics and mayhem, Charlie gladly went north to the Motor City and crossed the picket line. Working for The Detroit News from 1995 to 2001, he covered gang murders, the mob, corruption in the city's public schools and politics that make the shenanigans of Congress seem tame.
While in Detroit, Charlie co-wrote a series about the Detroit Fire Department, linking 21 fire deaths to broken fire trucks, faulty equipment and poor management. This expose earned him the Roy W. Howard Award for public service and reporting as well as the Associated Press Managing Editors Association’s Freedom of Information Act Award.
As much as he loved Detroit, he missed home and when he and his wife, Stephanie, had their first child, it was time to leave that mean, cold city. In 2001 Charlie signed on as Washington Correspondent for the Charlotte Observer covering politics in Washington, D.C., which also brought him a good bit closer to home here in Virginia. That's also when Charlie got to know and cover an ambitious young, freshman senator named John Edwards.
Since being in Washington, Charlie has covered the 2004 presidential election for the Washington Times (2003-2007) and later he became the Capitol Hill Bureau Chief. After a brief stint at the Washington Examiner, he became the Washington Bureau Chief for The New York Post, where he helps oversee political coverage, writes a column and covers the White House. He's been on and off the road covering the presidential primaries since last year.
He is a frequent contributor to Fox News, C-Span and radio programs coast to coast.
Charlie and Stephanie live on Capitol Hill with their three children, Lily, Henry and Sam.
This website is sponsored by Mitchells Publications, Chatham, Virginia.