It's not every day that a young conservative from Puget Sound successfully launches a career in print journalism. Chris Collins, formerly of Shoreline, is now working as a county government reporter at the Merced Sun-Star in Merced, California. It's a McClatchy newspaper, so his articles are already appearing in well-known sister papers such as The Modesto Bee. A few recent straight-news pieces are here and here (free reg. may be req.). Here's another, from today. As a beat reporter at a mid-size market daily, Chris' personal politics are necessarily submerged, as ought to be the case - but often isn't - at larger dailies.

I met Chris when I was researching one of my Seattle Times guest op-eds, titled, "Woe To The Moderates At UW" (free reg. req.). He was a Running Start student at Shoreline Community College and had some discouraging tales of an overbearing, PC-obsessed teacher and an enabling administration. Later imbroglios I heard of from adult students at Shoreline, who were readers of my Times guest column between 2001 and 2004, confirmed the hostile political environment at the school about which Chris had spoken.

Chris and I stayed in touch as he completed his undergraduate work at XXWhitmanXX Whitworth College in Spokane, and I watched with admiration as his writing skills blossomed during a stint as a youth team blogger and sometimes op-ed columnist for The Times. Chris also penned op-eds for The Baltimore Sun, interned at a North Carolina paper, and last summer interned - covering the crime beat - for the Everett Herald, where this piece of his on Everett's dicey Casino Road got picked up by MSNBC. As you'll see there, and in the some of the op-ed links I have provided below the fold here, Chris has a sharp writing style, and strong reporting skills.

Remember his name. The plain fact of the matter to anyone who follows the journalism trade closely, is that with all the justified dismay at liberal bias in the media, especially the so-called "news" sections of urban dailies, there still remain substantial opportunities for young conservative opinion writers, and not merely as guest commentators. I fully expect that within seven years, if he sticks with the newspaper racket, Chris will either be a syndicated columnist, editorial board member at a fair-sized daily, or even an ed page editor. Assuming that is, that the industry survives. In an era of exponential change among news consumers, more metro dailies need not only to embrace the blogosphere more fully, but talents like Chris, as well.

Links to a few of his op-eds are below. (Mac Safari users click on date stamp to continue).

Here are a few Seattle Times op-eds from Chris (free reg. req.) that will definitely give you an idea of why I'm high on his prospects.

On outsourcing;

On home-schooling;

and the Supreme Court's ruling against the juvenile death penalty.

Tim Goddard wrote this post about Chris in January '05 at Sound Politics.