UMass Amherst Alumni Association

Unexpected Politics

Cosmo Macero ’90, senior vice president at the communications and public relations firm O’Neill and Associates in Boston and veteran political, business, and public policy journalist, shares his insights on the 2010 elections.

How did you develop an interest in politics?
When I attended college, it was a very interesting time in terms of the political environment in Massachusetts and elsewhere. I was studying mass communications and I like to say that I minored in the Daily Collegian. I spent a lot of time in the news room learning how to be a reporter and how to run a newspaper; I was the managing editor for a while.  It was a great supplement to my UMass education and sometimes, for better or worse, it took a front seat to my studies. My experience at the Collegian was one of the key things that steered me on the course I would follow in my career.

Tell us about your career path.
There was such a tremendous palette of opportunities at UMass Amherst in terms of academic pursuits, arts, sciences, and athletics that I tried to be focused pretty early on.

I decided that I really wanted to be a newsman, so while I was still finishing my degree, I worked part-time at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton. After about three years, I went on to another great newspaper, the Springfield Republican. At that time I was also moonlighting as a bartender at a place called Barsellotti’s because I was a young married guy and I needed to work two jobs to make ends meet.  But I knew that I was in the right field and I was quite fortunate to have good mentors early on. I spent about eight years learning how to be a journalist, how to write and report a story, and how to deal with people and be sensitive to sources.

In 1997, I left the Springfield Republican to work at the Boston Herald, which is a very special and unique place. It’s an old-fashion news room that is always electric with activity. I was fortunate to spend about nine years there as a business and political reporter. I was the State House bureau chief for a period and then I was a columnist and the business editor .

I also began commentating on a TV segment for Fox 25 here in Boston called “The Heavy Hitters.”  We talk about politics, current events, and the news of the day.  We also goof around a lot, but I try to have one meaningful thing to say per segment. It’s been running seven years and I still do that every Tuesday morning. 

A few years into writing my column, I thought that I had found what I would do for the rest of my life, but life gives you different opportunities and at age 38 I decided to join O’Neill and Associates. I am a senior vice president in the communications practice.

During your time as a reporter, was there one news story that really stands out in your memory?
There’s a lot of them that stand out, including some strange ones.

I once wrote about a woman who got kicked in the head by a horse and then killed her husband with a shotgun because the head injury made her crazy. A 500-pound elderly transvestite pulled a kitchen knife on me when I knocked on the door of his trailer to talk about a missing person. And then there was a young girl from Brooklyn who got lost deep in the woods near Sturbridge, Mass. during a field trip. She was missing for two days and her Hasidic community from New York sent busloads of people to help find her. She finally turned up safe and sound – kneeling by a tree and praying.

I spent about a week covering the final phase of the Florida recount in 2000, which was interesting and chaotic. My staff in the Herald business section won a national award for their work covering the sale of Gillette to Proctor & Gamble. I was particularly proud of that and all of them.

I also got a piece of hate mail from Carl Bernstein because he thought a column I did about a company he was involved with was an unfair hatchet job. Not exactly a badge of honor, I guess. But I still framed it!

But more than anything else - like thousands of reporters around America – I remember the events of 9/11 down to the minute. My first column came out on September 10, 2001 about healthcare and the very next day I knew that I had to learn how to make things relevant in the prism of what had happened.

For a long time, there was certainly no way to write about anything other than the terrorist attacks because it dominated the news front to back, with the possible exception of the sports page. As a new columnist, it was kind of a good crash course in figuring out how to be new and different each day and for that, I’m grateful. That was the most significant experience in my newspaper career because nothing will equal it and I hope to never see it happen again.

What is your current role at O’Neill and Associates?
I work with just about every major industry in New England: healthcare, financial services, higher education, non-profits, development, media, a couple of major consumer-oriented companies, and some gaming. We do everything from crisis communications to media training and soup-to-nuts PR.  Raising the profile of your organization , supporting its development, and becoming part of your team are our main objectives.  Our firm also has the leading Beacon Hill lobbying practice in Massachusetts. As well as a very strong federal relations practice in Washington, DC.

How would you describe the 2010 political campaign?
Unexpected! Some candidates that voters didn’t think much of at the outset, turned in unexpected performances on the campaign trail and those who were considered strong, unexpectedly did not do as well. It’s made for a very interesting election season.

In the Massachusetts gubernatorial race, we saw some things that have never happened before. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a candidate bolt on his own ticket – meaning Tim Cahill’s running mate – in the way that he did. The intrigue and back and forth between the different camps was also unexpected.  I think also that across all the Massachusetts races, people were looking for the next big GOP upset. I certainly was. But it didn’t happen. Deval Patrick’s pretty decisive re-election – I had thought the race was much closer than it turned out to be – helped all the Democratic candidates on the ticket.

How would you critique the different campaign strategies of the Democratic, Republican, and Tea Party candidates on a national level?
I think what they did right was to cautiously tap into the frustration that is out there without overdoing it. People can see that the economy continues to be stagnant, the jobless rate is slow to improve, and they can’t get a mortgage or do things financially to improve their lives. The candidates that did a good enough job plugging into that discontent and unease did well.

Some of the mistakes came when candidates tried to read from a tired old playbook. When I heard talk about term limits and the same rhetoric about people cheating welfare, I just thought to myself, is that really the best you can do? I’m not sure that those issues resonated for most voters.

Would you describe the 2010 campaign as more negative than usual?
Inevitably, when there is so much money flooding into campaigns you’re going to have some that is deployed for negative advertising, and we’ve seen a lot of that this year. Good campaigns are about differences, so I guess pointing out bad things that your opponent has done is a way of defining the differences between you and your opponent.

I remember looking at a YouTube clip of the Obama supporter who said that she was exhausted from waiting for good things to happen. Some candidates played into that sentiment successfully, while others missed the mark.

What advice do you have for UMass students interested in journalism, communications, or public relations?
Number one, don’t be afraid and don’t be scared away by the transformation of the media industry.  Good media is going to come out OK on the other side of this , one way or another.  There is more demand for content and more interest and engagement in public affairs than ever before. The business models are complicated and it’s not entirely clear how media companies are going to sustain themselves into the future, but I’m one of those people that believe that they will, and that there’s going to be great opportunity.

I would tell students to be entrepreneurial and not to discount their reporting skills, even if they’re not a part of a huge news organization. The democratization of the media and the tools that are available today are tremendous developments.

Also, make the most out of every opportunity that UMass has to offer. The ability to get work experience while you’re in school and learn how different news organizations operate is a huge advantage. I can tell you from personal experience that there is a tremendous range of opportunities that you get with a UMass education.

I’m about as proud to be a UMass graduate as anything else in my life. I really found the path to start and continue with my life’s work and I’ve got UMass Amherst to thank for that!