Lisa Chedekel, an award winning reporter and writer for several Connecticut newspapers, including the New Haven Register and the Hartford Courant is dead at age 57. She died Friday of cancer. She leaves behind two children, Bernard and Evelyn and a wife Isabel Morais.
After leaving daily journalism Chedekel wrote for the Boston University School of Public Health and taught journalism at Northeastern University. In 2010 she started the Connecticut Health I-Team along with former colleague Lynne Delucia and ran a number of summer journalism camps where she no doubt inspired many young people with the power of journalism to change lives.
Personal note: I write this post through tears because I had the opportunity to work closely with Lisa in 1999 and 2000 as she spent nearly one year behind the scenes of the Rowland administration during a time I was serving as press secretary.
Lisa was writing a lengthy profile of Rowland for the Courant’s Northeast magazine. She was given access to the governor’s family, daily staff meetings (including contentious meetings about controversial and sensitive issues) and the governor’s long time friends. I trusted her so completely that whenever she met resistance from a potential source close to Rowland I personally intervened to make sure she got the access she needed. When her story was finally done it was thorough, fair and uncomfortable to read, but she kept her word and did not use her special access to embarrass anyone she had witnessed in action behind closed doors.
Lisa had a strong sense of when someone was trying to manipulate her to shape her coverage and she strongly pushed back on those efforts. She was also very humble. As a writer, she was a craftsman. During the time she covered the state capitol she uncovered the truth daily and slowly almost as if writing a personal diary.
It is my hope that her legacy lives on not only through her children, but through the many students she introduced to journalism through her summer j-school camps. We have often posted about those annual camps and the pictures that accompany the posts show the strength of Lisa’s love of her craft and love for her students.
