How The Hill helped me learn and grow as a political journalist

This is one in a series of op-eds celebrating The Hill’s 30th anniversary.

My abiding memory of working at The Hill came nearly 17 years ago. Amid the most fascinating presidential campaign of my life — still to this date — two colleagues and I were outside our hotel on a frigid Iowa afternoon ahead of that state’s 2008 caucuses.

We were recording a video analyzing the latest developments in the campaign. As I recall, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had just been assassinated, throwing a wrench not just into that tense area of the world, but also into American domestic politics.

Aaron Blake / Photo credit: Marvin Joseph, The Washington Post via Getty Images

We could barely speak, it was so cold. I liked to think I could handle it, having left my home state of Minnesota just three years prior, but it was brutal — and a struggle. The subject matter was hardly in any of our wheelhouses, least of all mine. Yet there we were, experimenting with the still somewhat novel concept of video analysis and trying to figure out what it all might mean for the vote a few days later.

The content of the video is apparently lost to the depths of YouTube. And I can’t even say I remember much of anything about what was said. But that moment to me epitomized my time at The Hill.

The Hill had always been the scrappy newcomer to the Washington news scene. And we tried lots of different things. Some of them worked; many did not. But The Hill always had a knack for hiring some of the most ambitious young journalists, bringing them together, and letting them figure it out.

This process was invaluable for me. I got a chance to not just try out recording videos with frozen equipment, but to hone my craft by covering a multitude of campaigns nationwide, gaining an appreciation for the politics of nearly every state in the country — something that remains invaluable to me to this day. I got to write a political column. I got to launch this relatively newfangled thing called a “blog,” where anyone interested in the latest in House and Senate campaigns could come for all the latest major developments.

More than anything, though, it was the people who made my four years there such a great experience. I was in awe of those who were there when I showed up.

It was the House and Senate reporters who seemed to know everything that was happening behind the scenes with the latest piece of legislation. It was the business and lobbying reporters who did some of the best watchdog reporting in a way I, to this day, still can’t imagine being able to do myself. It was the editors who guided the ship of a small newsroom — I could hit pretty much every reporter’s desk with a hastily folded paper airplane — that consistently punched above its weight in the increasingly crowded world of D.C. political journalism.

I learned from all of them. And I got to learn plenty about myself by being given the freedom to report on the things I found interesting.

Perhaps the best testament to my time at The Hill is how many relationships I gained that last to this day. The four years I was there was a relatively small portion of my professional career, but we packed a lot of big moments and great memories into it. I’ve seen colleagues then and those who came before and after go on to great things.

None of that is possible without a news organization that finds great people and fosters an environment that allows them to flourish. And that’s how you survive and thrive — for 30 years — in such a tough business.

Aaron Blake is a former reporter for The Hill and is a senior political reporter for The Washington Post.