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Online Vault of Selected
Dave Jackson began writing at the age of eight in the basement of the home he grew up in, located in the Kensington section of North Philadelphia. His writing provided an escape from the realities of life, such as having to deal with his totalitarian, mob-connected step-father. Before he turned 11, Dave began publishing his own weekly newspaper, The Sterner Street Gazette, which maintained a circulation of more than 100 for more than two years. That’s not a small task for a junior high school student. By the time he entered ninth grade at Lincoln High School, Dave already started working on his professional writing career. His byline had already made print in several local newspapers, including the Philadelphia Journal and the The Bulletin (aka the Evening and Sunday Bulletin), where he had contributed breaking news stories. Both of those papers are now defunct. He had also done other writing, as well. Just before his high school years were to begin, Dave purchased his first computer, a slightly used TRS-80, which was soon followed by the purchase of a Commodore VIC-20, and later updated to a Commodore 64. The computers, using a 300-baud modem, which was lightning fast in those days, provided access to Bulletin Board Services (BBSs), as well as the early networks that helped bring about the Internet as we know it today. When he started high school, Dave contacted Don Brennan, editor of a weekly Northeast Philadelphia newspaper, the News Gleaner. Dave asked for a shot at writing a weekly column on the happenings at Lincoln High School. That column, called The Railsplitter, proved to be successful and popular. Dave covered many news items for the News Gleaner, including Pope John Paul II’s visit to Philadelphia in 1981, among other topics, including crime. After serving in the U.S. Army, Dave took to freelance writing. That lasted until 1990 when he returned to school to pursue a journalism degree in Champaign, Illinois. His interest in the Internet never disappeared. In fact, he was provided with a copy of the working model of Mosaic, the early model of Netscape. Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Champaign. He was also tied into the early online world via CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online. Dave later accepted a position as reporter, and shortly afterward, was promoted to editor of two weekly newspapers in Central Illinois. He later changed jobs and began writing for the Kankakee Daily Journal. After spending several years writing for daily and weekly newspapers on a regular basis once again, Dave moved to the Chicago area and wrote for newspapers there, including Press Publications, the Glen Ellyn News, and contributing to other publications. He also wrote several breaking news stories for Editor and Publisher magazine during this time. Dave moved back to Philadelphia in December, 1999, from the Chicago area. During the course of the move, however, his portfolio and the files containing all of all his clippings were destroyed. He has a handful of paper copies of his clips, as well as scanned copies of some articles, but the rest are now gone forever. For links to selected articles by Dave, following the links below: |
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