John Mashek, 77; with civility and prowess, he covered politics
Rising when most reporters were still sleeping, John Mashek would begin his rounds interviewing Washington’s powerful officials. The phone was his reporting tool of choice and his warmth prompted those who answered his early morning calls to slip him tidbits about the unfolding drama of national politics.
“What made John Mashek special was that in a profession of cynics, he was an idealist, and in a profession that sometimes makes short shrift of the gentle touch, he was a gentleman,’’ said David M. Shribman, the Globe’s former Washington bureau chief and now executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“In a town where there’s a lot of hostility between reporters and politicians, he never contributed to that,’’ said nationally syndicated political columnist Jules Witcover. “He contributed greatly to the good will in a town where, it seems to me, there is less and less of that.’’
Mr. Mashek, who began writing about Washington politics in the 1960s and filed his last blog for US News & World Report less than five months ago, died Tuesday after collapsing, apparently of a heart attack, while watching two of his granddaughters play soccer in Rockville, Md. He was 77 and had lived for many years in the Georgetown section of Washington.
Joining the Globe’s Washington bureau in the late 1980s, Mr. Mashek brought along an enviable list of sources and had the kinds of friends whose names glittered in the political firmament. Among them were Paul G. Kirk Jr., then the national Democratic Committee chairman, and George H.W. Bush, who was en route to becoming president.
“John Mashek was one of the most talented reporters I ever met,’’ Bush said in an e-mail. “He was an honest man and I always knew that I could put my full and complete trust in him.’’
“He loved politics when it was practiced at its best, and he deplored it at its worst,’’ said Kirk, who was appointed to temporarily fill the US Senate seat formerly held by the late Edward M. Kennedy. “He covered politics with insight and integrity. And he didn’t let the friendships get in the way of his candor and responsibility to report the way he saw it.’’
Mr. Mashek started covering Washington when he was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. He also reported from the capital for US News & World Report and the Globe, serving as a panelist for televised presidential and vice presidential debates in 1984, 1988, and 1992.
“He was a good-looking guy who had a very resonant voice and could have been on television if he chose,’’ Witcover said. “More than his appearance, he projected integrity and fairness, and he couched his questions so they didn’t agitate the person he was questioning, but instead encouraged good answers.’’
Writing a blog in retirement, Mr. Mashek showed little patience for the vitriol that invaded the national political scene he had chronicled since John F. Kennedy was being elected.
“As for the hope for bipartisanship and civility in Washington, forget about it,’’ he wrote in his US News blog on March 10. “The blame can be shared by many on the right and left, but there is little prospect for any of either in today’s caldron of bitterness and attack.’’
In a city and a profession where information is currency, Mr. Mashek earned his by trading on old school manners, and he was always generous in sharing information with other reporters.
“Apart from his distinguished career, he was probably the nicest, most decent individual I met in nearly four decades in the business. I’ll sorely miss him as a friend,’’ said Matthew V. Storin, former editor of the Globe. “John was a political reporter with a politician’s personality. He would charm a source into giving him what he needed, rather than browbeat the poor soul. . . . Republicans tended to be wary of a paper from liberal Massachusetts, but they all talked to Mashek.’’
Benjamin Taylor, former publisher of the Globe, called Mr. Mashek “one of the good newspaper people in the ‘80s and the ‘90s. He’s one of these guys who built his career around his winning personality as much as anything else.’’
Born in Sioux Falls, S.D., Mr. Mashek moved with his family to Fargo, N.D., and liked to tell the story about standing on the mound to face one of baseball’s best hitters when they both were young.
“I was an American Legion and amateur baseball pitcher in Fargo, N.D.,’’ he wrote for his blog in 2006. “I pitched batting practice now and then to the Fargo Legion team. Our right fielder was named Roger Maris.’’“Roger Maris hit his best pitch out of the park, so he had to find something else to do,’’ said Mr. Mashek’s wife, Sara.
Starting college in North Dakota, Mr. Mashek switched to the University of Minnesota, graduating with a journalism degree. He was an artillery officer in the Army and became a captain, later serving in the National Guard in Texas, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. He also met the former Sara Stone, whom he married in 1955.
Hired by the Dallas Morning News, he covered Texas politicians such as Lyndon B. Johnson and worked in the paper’s Washington bureau. Leaving in the mid-1960s, he worked briefly for Robert F. Kennedy, who was the US attorney general. Then Mr. Mashek was hired by US News & World Report for the magazine’s Houston bureau before returning to Washington. He also worked briefly for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before joining the Globe.
“From the beginning, he was a reporter’s reporter,’’ said his son David of Pittsburgh. “That is what he started doing, that is what he did all his life. Even when he retired, he reveled in being able to write a blog until recently.’’
Though Mr. Mashek had worked for Kennedy, “when he was writing, he was very proud that no one knew whether he was a Republican or a Democrat,’’ his wife said.
That quality, friends said, served Mr. Mashek well as a reporter and on the presidential debate panels.
“He wasn’t a terror interrogationist,’’ said Robert Healy, former executive editor of the Globe. “On the other hand, he got what he wanted. He was enormously successful in getting people to talk.’’
“It wasn’t that he was easy on the people he wrote about, it was that he was fair,’’ Shribman said. “And that fairness infused his whole approach, his whole life view, and his whole life.’’
In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Mashek leaves three other sons, James of Biloxi, Miss., Thomas of Philadelphia, and William of Bethesda, Md.; a sister, Maureen of Edina, Minn.; and seven grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at the Church of the Epiphany in Georgetown, in Washington. Burial will be private.