Fred Thys

Political News Reporter

I'm the political reporter for WBUR, but I also cover national security, terrorism, and constitutional issues.

As Americans, I think we have a negative image of the people who run for political office, but I think the people who run are often putting themselves on the line in order to serve the rest of us, and they can be very interesting people. I was reminded of that in working on a recent story about Patrick Murphy, an independent candidate for office in Massachusetts' Fifth Congressional District with original ideas who is refusing to run within a party, and refusing to take money.

Covering political stories is more than covering people who want to hold political office. It's also about covering the people who are affected by political decisions.

I'm spending a lot of time in New Hampshire, covering the presidential primary campaigns, these days, and one of the most rewarding parts of my work is talking to voters.

I recently produced a series on Massachusetts dairy farmers, who are being squeezed by low prices for their milk and the high cost of feed and energy, and their request for help from the state legislature.

I also spent some time in North Reading, a town that is going through the hard decision of whether to override Massachusetts Proposition 2 1/2, which prohibits towns from raising taxes more than 2 1/2 per cent.

I've spent a lot of time these last few years covering the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at home, profiling the people who fight the wars, their struggles once they come home, and the struggles of their loved ones.

I regularly spend time at the nation's airports covering
aviation security. I collaborated on an "Inside Out" documentary, Unfriendly Skies. In it, I followed the struggles of a 9/11 widow and an Federal Aviation Administration special agent to uncover the security lapses that allowed hijackers to take over four planes and crash them, and documented the federal government's attempts to prevent information about 9/11 from becoming public.

Before joining WBUR in 1998, I was the NBC News bureau chief in Mexico City. Prior to that, I worked for CNN as a field producer in New York , and I produced newscasts for CNN International.

I graduated from Williams College.

I first wanted to become a journalist at the breakfast table, growing up, reading the Washington Post and discussing world affairs with my parents and my brother. My parents are from Belgium, but I grew up in Washington, and I wanted to explain my two worlds to each other.