The Daily Orange

Media Credit: Wanda Lau

Some nights there were more bodies than others. Same with the nightmares. The constant crime had driven others in his profession to carry guns. But despite the paranoia his job caused him, Mark Obbie wanted it no other way.

He had always wanted to catch the bad guys. And as a crime reporter in Texas, he had his chance.

"There were so many murders in Houston when I was covering cops that we would have to pick and choose which murder scenes we would go to every night," Obbie said of his time at The Houston Post from 1983 to 1986.

Though he spent only a handful of years covering the police and courts beats in Texas, Obbie - now a professor in the magazine department at Syracuse University and head of SU's new Carnegie legal reporting program - has spent much of his life uncovering wrongdoing.

But those close to him know him as more than a man with an impressive resume, an accomplished investigative reporter and the former executive editor of American Lawyer magazine.

He's the kid who dreamed of being a cop. He's the college student who was always a thorn in the administration's side. He's the romantic who married his high-school sweetheart. He's the farm boy who, after 21 years in big cities, still feels most at home in the woods outside his upstate New York log cabin. And he's the avid blogger always looking for a news story to critique.

"It is that difference between just this incredibly nice, wonderful family guy and your worst nightmare if he's reporting about you and you've done something wrong," said longtime friend John Mecklin, who worked with Obbie at The Houston Post.

No matter what hat he dons, Obbie attacks each part of his life with the same passion and tenacity that have driven his professional career.

"My dad is a very passionate person," said his 20-year-old daughter, Rae Obbie. "He does everything from work to relaxing with more passion than most people are even capable of."

***

In a state infamous for the death penalty, Obbie saw his fair share of capital cases covering the criminal-courts beat for The Houston Post. He still remembers the first case that made him question his stance against the death penalty: the trial of one of the men who murdered five teenagers working at an amusement park near his apartment complex.

Obbie always loved the rush of hearing a verdict - the racing heart, the fast breathing that would ensue while waiting to hear the jury's decision.

Continued...

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