Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1355320
91 ADAM REILLY Like Kim Carrigan, Adam Reilly, a reporter for WGBH News, grew up in the Midwest. He came to Boston in 1996 to attend a master's program at Harvard Divinity School and moved to the North Shore 10 years later—first to Lynn and then in 2010 to Swampscott, where he still lives with his wife and two daughters. "I grew up in a landlocked part of the country," says Reilly. "I love seeing the ocean every day. In fact, I marvel at it." Reilly started his journalism career writing for North Shore Sunday. He then moved to the Daily Item for a brief period of time before joining The Boston Phoenix, where he covered the media for eight years. While at the Phoenix he appeared on GBH's "Beat The Press" several times and was intrigued when a job opened up at the station. "I knew the reputation of GBH since childhood and could see the writing on the wall at the Phoenix with the economic pressure that was facing the paper and many others around the country," Reilly says. Despite never being a TV reporter, he was hired in 2010 and remains at the station to this day. "I've had the opportunity to report on many stories, but I think the biggest stories were the Tsarnaev and Bulger trials, partly because they're local, partly because I covered them more, and partly because they were just remarkable to witness," says Reilly. "In both cases, you had people from the Boston area grappling at length with these incredibly traumatic events that had shaped the entire region's worldview. It was electric to watch, and often deeply disturbing." Like Carrigan, Reilly would also like to interview a politician, but in his case it could actually happen. "I'd like to interview the governor," Reilly says. "We do a politics podcast and we interviewed him early in his term. I would like to talk with him again to learn what he feels he has done right as well as what he feels he may have gotten wrong. I'm very curious to find out what it means to him to be a Republican now." DOUG MEEHAN As co-anchor of the EyeOpener newscast on WCVB, Channel 5, Doug Meehan of Lynnfield is the first person many see each weekday. It is the latest role in a 30-year media career for the West Yarmouth native. Meehan began his career on Cape Cod, where he conducted his first celebrity interview with Willy Nelson, but it was a story from his next job in Providence that had the biggest personal impact. "I covered a visit from Mother Teresa," Meehan vividly remembers. "After we put the camera away, we joined an impromptu receiving line. I thought it was going to be like meeting any famous person, but it was far from it. She held my hand and put a hand on my face. I felt an unexpected energy go through my body like I had never experienced." Meehan left New England to take reporter and anchor positions at TV stations in Florida and Texas, but returned home to work at WHDH, Channel 7. His first big break in Boston, however, came when he was hired to join the brand-new FOX25 Morning News as the market's first full-time helicopter reporter covering traffic and breaking news. During this time he traveled to London, Berlin, Hollywood, and New York City where he conducted what he says is his favorite interview, with Tom Cruise. "He was one of the nicest A-list celebrities I have met and just a really cool guy," says Meehan. After FOX25 Meehan spent two years in radio, but the lure of television news led him to Phoenix, Arizona, where he spent nearly three years as a news anchor. In December 2015, an opportunity many journalists who grew up locally dream of opened up— anchoring the news on WCVB, Channel 5. "Channel 5 has provided me with the opportunity to attend three Super Bowls and a World Series. For a kid who grew up as a die-hard fan of the Patriots and Red Sox it's a dream come true." When returning to the area, the Cape Cod native never imagined living on the North Shore. However, "Lynnfield felt right," he says. "Having a house with a backyard that also provides easy access to Logan and a taste of the city at MarketStreet has been great." Meehan shares that his dream interview Adam Reilly