Wendy Warren

When I was in college we still pasted up the college newspaper with hot wax and X-Acto knives, and, you know, had blue pens and all that good stuff. And I remember having stories that the Student Government Association would meet in secret, and we would write about that. And then they would have to open up the meetings, because it was clearly a violation of the state’s law. That kind of early work was very impressive to me.

But, probably the times I felt it the most has been at The Daily News where The Daily News would write a story about somebody who would never, ever, ever, get their story told.

Again Jill Porter – a wonderful columnist, now retired from The Daily News – wrote a series of stories about this grandmother – I think she lived in West Philly – a poorly educated and poor woman, but a proud woman who came home from a hospital stay and found that her possessions and her house had been moved out to the curb and someone else was living in her house.

And it turned out someone had gone down to the Recorder of Deeds office and simply filed a transfer of [her] deed for a dollar. And had stolen this woman’s house. Well, that woman – and her name was Devota Clark – that woman’s story, when we published it, we were amazed to find that it was by no means an isolated incident, and that lots of people in Philadelphia had their house stolen from them with these deed scams. And there were some changes that could be made in the Recorder of Deeds office that would make a difference. There were changes that can be made to the notary system that would make a difference.

And Jill started writing about this and those changes were made. And something as simple as a postcard was instituted where [when] someone walks into the Recorder of Deeds office tries to switch a deed; they send a postcard to the house owner. And suddenly we found out that people were stealing houses.

There was a criminal investigation; there were charges. It was a wonderful moment where this woman, who I know nobody else would listen to – nobody but The Daily News would listen to her.

No other paper would listen to her because it sounded so crazy – and she was right.