In the news business, there’s often a drive to be first. The first to report a story, the first to call an important source, the first to break big news. But sometimes, that desire to be first can come at the expense of accuracy, and so every journalism professor instills in their students that it’s better to be last and accurate than first and wrong.
Certainly, that’s a good mantra. In the case of The Daily Evening Item in 1993, the reporter was not wrong — just early.
Item reporter Tom Dalton’s headline declares “Marblehead woman may be top cop” and, in a sub-headline, “O’Toole considered for Boston opening.” The O’Toole he’s referencing is Kathleen M. O’Toole, a 1972 graduate of Marblehead High School and a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts State Police. The top cop job in question is that of Boston Police commissioner — according to Dalton, O’Toole was in the running to replace Police Commissioner William Bratton in the state’s largest city.
O’Toole, who at the time ran special operations for the State Police, declined interviews, but yet her name kept popping up.
“She just thinks it’s too premature now even to get into the mix,” State Police spokesman Larry Gillis is quoted as saying. “She is not an announced or unannounced candidate.”
While O’Toole didn’t take the job in 1993 — she did a decade letter.
According to her LinkedIn page, O’Toole remained at the State Police until 1999, including a stint as the secretary of public safety from 1994 to 1998. Then, in February 2004, she took the Boston job she had been rumored for a decade earlier, serving until May 2006. She later served as a chief inspector in Dublin, Ireland and chief of police in Seattle, Wash. Now, O’Toole is a partner at 21st Century Policing Solutions, LLC, and the president of O’Toole Associates LLC, a post she has held since August 2000.
So, Dalton’s story was correct — he was not just a few minutes or days early, but a full decade. Maybe a future edition of this column will analyze his ability to apparently see the future.