Live from Nevada City, It’s the Geezer Gig! - “Party like an animal and be home in
bed by 10.” Proving you’re never too old to rock’n’roll, Bob Woods and friends tear
it up in a world-wide webcast by KVMR community radio from the Crazy Horse
Saloon in Nevada City, California.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
- Maya Angelou
What follows are links to samples of my writing from very asssorted genres. I will rotate articles
from time to time. Some of the links will take you off-site. Please don’t forget to come back.
To see almost everything I’ve published in the last 10 years, please go to my page on Muck Rack.
News Reporting
Native Americans locked out of their cemetery - This was the beginning of a
strange tale of covert racism, white guilt, intertribal tensions, and bureaucratic
gridlock. The cemetery was quickly reopened, but the underlying issues were
still unresolved when I left the the newspaper.
Raid on a pot farm - It can take a long time for law enforcement officers to trust a reporter.
While it’s easy enough to get a press relations ride-along in a patrol car, it’s not so easy
when guns and deep undercover officers are involved.
Investigative Reporting
I’ve investigated street drugs, alleged prostitution, illegal marijuana grows and crooked
contractors, but the most enterprising investigation I’ve ever done was to find out who ran a secret
satirical e-zine that was amusing and annoying prominent citizens. It took me months to pierce
their veil of secrecy: The Nevada County Scooper sheds light on “issues of the day” through satire.
Creative Nonfiction
Sometimes you get an assignment that is so weird that you have to take a weird angle to do
justice to the subject. As my publisher Gil Gordon noted in his introduction to A Tale of Two
Commuters, the topic was, on the face of it, totally crackpot - until I put a face on it.
Close Encounter with a Porcupine - Some stories just write themselves. And this story is true. I
don’t think I actually hit the porcupine but I must have nicked it. The story is really about how I
learned to hit a drop-dead deadline.
Copywriting
I wrote this a long time ago. It was my philosophy then, and it still is.
Marketing
In 2017, One Source-Empowering Caregivers was a new nonprofit that needed to establish its
service to the community, so I put them on the front page: Caring for the Caregiver. For the next
two years, I maintained their dynamic presence in print and social media. The contract concluded
with a creative training and recruitment documentary called It Takes a Village.
Legal and Legislative Analysis
CTA v Gould I - Pre-verdict analysis of a multi-year, multi-million dollar lawsuit by the California
Teachers Association against the State of California over the misappropriation of funds from
Proposition 98 lottery income designated for education. There was a gag order, but I found deep-
throat sources on both sides.
CTA v Gould II - Post-verdict analysis. CTA won. Most papers reported a $373 million settlement,
but that was only the first payout. The actual settlement was $1.76 billion. Most papers didn’t get
that.
Workers Compensation Fraud: Crime and Punishent - Tired of watching workers comp stakeholders
blaming each other fraud, I decided to examine how each stakeholder group defrauds the system,
feeding on the injuries of workers.
© Tom Durkin Media
1998-2022
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Personality Profiles
Julie Baker took a “funky little performing arts center” in Grass Valley, California, and
turned The Center for the Arts into a nationally known venue for A-list performers and
stars in niche genres. After eight years, she stepped down to start her own arts and
entertainment company.
Good writing
is rewriting.