John Harris
From the moment I caught the journalism bug during my freshman year in college, I knew I wanted to work for The Washington Post. Post editors, as it happened, did not have similar certitude that they wanted me to work for them. "We wish you good luck finding other employment this summer," Tom Wilkinson, an assistant managing editor, wrote me in rejecting my application for an internship in 1984.

The next year turned out better. Tom called me to let me know I was on for the summer. The Post throws its interns in the water headfirst, and I had a terrific time. I was astonished by the long leash I was given, writing everything from police stories to front-page features.

An exhilarating thing that summer was seeing and meeting people whose names held a powerful attraction for me -- David Broder, Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward, among many others. Fifteen years later, I find that remains one of the best things about working for The Post. It offers a chance to be immersed in, and inspired by, a potent journalistic tradition. At the moment, newsroom people here are devoting considerable thought to how to extend that tradition, and apply its best lessons, to a business changing at a bewildering pace.

For eight years, I covered local politics and government in Northern Virginia and the Virginia statehouse in Richmond, including the administration of Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor. In 1994, I covered the Defense Department and thus the U.S. military intervention in Haiti. The next year, I began covering the Clinton White House and do so now.

I grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and graduated in American History from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. My interest in politics is why The Post has always seemed a natural home for me. Covering national politics with authority and style will always be one of the main franchises here.

Fortunately, The Post also has lots of room for people who are not like me and did not decide when they were 18 that they wanted to pursue journalism. My wife, Ann O'Hanlon, was in the Peace Corps and various public interest jobs before deciding to pursue journalism at age 28. She covers local government in The Post's Alexandria, Va., bureau, just two miles from our home, where we live with two Bernese Mountain Dogs and Liza, a beautiful 1-year-old.

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