(Photo courtesy of the Armenian Mirror-Spectator: Stephen Kurkjian, one of three original members of theBoston Globe’s “Spotlight Investigative Team,” worked as a reporter and editor at the Globe for more than 35 years).
“He [Kurkjian] has been at the top of this game for the past three or four decades,” Carroll, who worked with Kurkjian for more than a year on a 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning series on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, said. “Steve is one of the best reporters I’ve ever worked with – he is so good at digging, he’s tenacious…and he, like any good reporter, is excellent at ‘sniffing’ out stories.”
(Photo courtesy of TIME Magazine online: Kurkjian’s work with the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight Investigative Team on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church earned him his third Pulitzer in 2003.Kurkjian was also awarded Pulitzers in 1972 – for exposing corruption in Somerville – and 1980 – for his investigative work on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.)
And, although the Armenian Mirror-Spectator reports that he accepted a buyout from the Boston Globe in 2007, Kurkjian remains active – serving as a reporter for the Dorchester Reporter, researching a picture from the 1915 Armenian genocide, and investigating the 1990 art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston’s Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood.
(Photo courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: On March 18, 1990, 13 pieces of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, including these two Rembrandts: A Lady and Gentleman in Black and The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. The perpetrators have not yet been identified. Kurkjian – who, after an estimated 200 personal interviews, said he has a “pretty good” idea of who is responsible for the heist – hopes to publish a book on the crime once he has compiled definitive evidence.)
The theft, which Kurkjian said has been described as the “greatest art heist in world history,” occurred during the early morning hours of March 18, 1990. Thieves – disguised as police officers – subdued the guard on duty, Kurkjian said, before stealing 13 works of art valued at nearly $300 million. Twenty years later, Kurkjian added, the government has not located a single painting.
The FBI’s failure to locate the paintings – or the perpetrators – however, will not deter Kurkjian from opening up an investigation of his own. In fact, according to Carroll, such stories are right up this award-winning journalist’s alley.
“[Steve] is an extremely…empathetic and trustworthy person – he can sit with pretty much anyone and get [them] to talk,” Carroll said of his former colleague. “And, he is a terrific researcher/reporter – he will dig and dig and dig until he finds out just what is going on.”
It is this ability to see “the story” and “piece things together” that has rocketed Kurkjian to a position of local and national prominence. In a talk conducted by John Ellement at Boston University’s College of Communication, Kurkjian cautioned that no one (including himself) could out-report every other news outlet every time. What they can do, however, is “out-smart” and “out-work” other reporters by looking for stories everywhere, looking at stories from a different angle, and tapping every available resource for information.
And, even though the game has changed since his 1969 Boston Globe article on the Woodstock music festival, the principles of good reporting have remained the same – preparation, curiosity, an ability to write clearly and concisely, and a willingness to ask questions.
“The skill set you learn here, in class, is practical – it will be put to use when you leave the classroom and deal with the outside world,” Kurkjian told the class of aspiring BU reporters, noting that while the future may seem unclear, journalism is certainly not dead – people will always be on the lookout for factual information reported clearly, truthfully, and concisely.
Born in Dorchester, MA – what he described as a “lower middle class-working neighborhood” – Kurkjian attended Boston Public Schools as a youngster before enrolling at Boston University in 1962. After he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1966, Kurkjian began work in the newspaper business (he also attended law school at the request of his mother. Kurkjian graduated from Suffolk University Law School in 1970, and is a non-practicing member of the Massachusetts Bar Association).
(Photo courtesy of Boston University: Kurkjian attended Boston University as an undergraduate. He also graduated with his Juris Doctor degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1970.)
Kurkjian began his work with the Boston Globe in 1968, and during his tenure with the paper has served as reporter and editor for the “Spotlight Investigative Team,” Bureau Chief for the paper’s Washington Bureau, and senior assistant metropolitan editor.
For more than 35 years, Kurkjian tirelessly investigated and reported story after story for the Globe. Now, after three years of “retirement” from one of the giants in the Boston newspaper business, Kurkjian continues investigating, reporting, and writing (once a week in the Boston Public Library’s Bates Hall Public Reading Room – “the second-best room in Boston [behind the Globe’s newsroom],” Kurkjian said).It is because of this hard work and talent, Carroll and Ellement said, that he remains one of the best reporters in the journalistic world.
“[Steve] is inspirational…tenacious, and, he’s a phenomenal resource,” Carroll said. “He’s had a hand in probably every major scandal in this state [for quite some time]…and, again, he’s won three Pulitzers – there may be only two or three other people who can say that.”
“I am not full of myself,” Kurkjian told BU students. “But, I am full of being a journalist…I’d like to think my DNA is in the Globe’s newsroom.”
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