While at Allegheny, Tom O’Boyle majored in English with a Geology/History double minor. Outside of class, he spent time doing theater and serving as a member of Allegheny Student Government.
He also held a full-time semester long internship at the Meadville Tribune, piquing his interest in the journalism field. Tom’s senior project was an 13 article investigative series on the issues of solid-waste disposal in Crawford County, published in the Meadville Tribune.
After Allegheny, Tom went to the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, to receive a Master’s degree in journalism.
A former staff writer and editor for The Wall Street Journal, he covered a variety of assignments in the United States and overseas, including the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall while stationed in Germany.
Since 1994, he has worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as assistant managing editor in the newsroom and, more recently, as a senior executive responsible for digital product development. He was supervising editor of a project for which the Post-Gazette was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1998. His writing for the Post-Gazette can be accessed at www.post-gazette.com.
He teaches advanced journalism classes on new digital media and non-fiction writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Tom finds that today’s ever-changing technology has encouraged the need for information and fosters growth in the journalism field.
“Print may fade away, to be replaced by who knows what device, but the basic hunger for information – and the imperative of making sense of it – is more essential and necessary now than ever before.”
A liberal arts education provides the tools for developing an inquisitive mind, enabling the path to becoming a journalist and citizen of the world.
Holly Ramey ’14