Zack Stalberg was named President and Chief Executive Officer of the Committee of Seventy in February, 2005.
He broadened its mission, brought new life to the organization and is using it to make Philadelphia’s political culture more open, honest, competent and competitive.
He is intimately familiar with the worlds of government, politics, business and the news media. True or not, he is delighted to be viewed as one of the most powerful people in Philadelphia.
Stalberg is a native Philadelphian who spent the first 35 years of his career in journalism. He took a single day off and then assumed command of the Committee of Seventy, which is often – though simplistically -- described as a government watchdog.
The century-old, non-partisan group had lost its bite. But no more.
As head of the non-profit Committee of Seventy, Stalberg has helped put the need for honest and effective government higher on the public agenda.
Here are two key examples:
PAY TO PLAY: The Stalberg-led Committee of Seventy launched a long court fight to protect tight new limits on campaign contributions. The battle began with a lawsuit against all of the 2007 mayoral candidates and ended with an unexpected victory in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The age-old practice of “pay-to-play” was crippled and campaign contributors were saved millions.
CATALYST FOR TRUE REFORM: The Committee of Seventy’s 2009 broadside, “Tackling True Reform,” reminded the city and the administration of Mayor Michael Nutter that Philadelphia still has a very long way to go in order to be able to attract residents, jobs and businesses. Many others have echoed the Committee of Seventy’s call for sharply accelerated change.
Before joining the Committee of Seventy – an anachronistic name that still annoys him – Stalberg was responsible for editorial content and business results at the Philadelphia Daily News.
During his 20-year tenure as Editor, the Daily News won two Pulitzer Prizes, was a finalist for a third and regularly produced bottom line results most businesses would envy. He received one of the newspaper world’s highest honors – the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ 2005 Leadership Award.
As storm clouds began to form over print journalism, Stalberg decided to pursue a long-held desire to try to have an even more direct effect on public life in Philadelphia.
At the Committee of Seventy, he has been instrumental in getting voters to approve two major ethics reforms by overwhelming margins and was the most outspoken critic of racial and religious attacks engineered by stealth groups at the end of the 2007 mayoral election. In a town where leaders are notoriously cautious, Stalberg has never been reluctant to speak out.
He often repeats a line by the legendary and flamboyant reform mayor of Philadelphia, Richardson Dilworth, whom he covered as a young reporter:
“Yes, I am an emotional man, and a fighter. Do you think there would be any cities if there were not men like me to fight for them?”
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Stalberg grew up in West Philadelphia and graduated from Overbrook High School. He majored in political science and graduated from Temple University in 1968, despite rarely attending class. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of Temple’s School of Communications.
Stalberg volunteered for the U.S. Army and served as an enlisted man in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. It was his greatest learning experience.
He still carries his Vietnam Zippo.
After failing to make it as a political cartoonist, he entered newspapering in late 1970 as a reporter for the Bucks County (PA) Courier Times. He joined the Daily News in 1971 and started covering government and politics a short time later. He has tangled with every mayor of Philadelphia since Dilworth, including his old friend Nutter.
In 1973, Stalberg convinced then-Mayor Frank L. Rizzo to take a polygraph test after Rizzo was accused of offering a political bribe to a rival while the two men were using adjacent urinals in the Bellevue Stratford Hotel. Rizzo flunked the test, sparking Philadelphia’s most memorable political headline: RIZZO LIED, TESTS SHOW.
Mayor Rizzo was a budding national figure before the lie detector test. His career and public image never recovered.
Stalberg’s took off.
He became City Editor of the Daily News in 1975, Managing Editor in 1977, Executive Editor in 1979 and Editor in 1984. The News was losing $5 million annually and headed for closure when he took control. It was soon in the black.
Stalberg made his mark with bold, unorthodox campaigns aimed at making Philadelphia better – and particularly a ground-breaking series entitled “Rethinking Philadelphia.” The “Rethinking” series, Stalberg’s transition from traditional to crusading journalist and his ultimate decision to come to Seventy to try to make government better were inspired by the life and violent death in 1999 of his close friend, idealist and columnist Russell Byers.
When Stalberg quit the Daily News, his longtime competitors at The Philadelphia Inquirer praised him in an editorial as a “showman and a pit bull.”
He is married to Deb Lock Stalberg, an Indiana-born horsewoman and former journalist. His three children are Erin, Ilisa and Zane. His son is named after the writer of romantic Western novels, Zane Grey.
Stalberg’s favorite author is Graham Greene and favorite movie is “Shane.” His only real hero is Edward R. Murrow. He drives a ragtop Jaguar, curses frequently, favors cowboy boots and has a rider aboard a buckin’ bronc tattooed on his right shoulder. If he ever chooses to leave Philadelphia, he will divide his time between Rome and New Mexico.
His favorite quote is from the inventor Robert Jarvik:
“Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. They make the impossible happen.”