ANDY BARTH

FULTON, MARYLAND

Andy Barth worked as a reporter with WMAR TV in Baltimore for 35 years (1970-2005), doing general assignment stories with an emphasis on politics and features. He retired to enter the race for the Maryland 3rd District seat in the United States Congress but lost.

During his tenure at WMAR, Andy reported from Washington, Mexico, Israel, and Russia, but his primary focus was on local news in Baltimore; he tried to catch people being good. He covered Presidential campaigns, inaugurals, impeachments, and funerals. He covered the sniper siege of 2003 and the sniper trials of 2004; he has been to the World Series, World’s Fairs, national political conventions, and Bicentennial Celebrations. While in Baltimore he pioneered two franchise features, known as “Andy at Large,” and “How Do They Do That?”

After his congressional race, Andy freelanced for WTTG-Ch 5 in Washington, covered the Baltimore Orioles in Spring Training for a chain of newspapers’ web sites, taught Advanced Broadcast Reporting as a visiting lecturer at the University of Southern Mississippi, and then became chief flak (“Director of Communications”) for a Health-Care-For-All program run by Howard County, Maryland. In 2010 he served as the press secretary to a candidate for Governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich, and learned once again that a lot of what he thought he knew as a reporter seems different from the other side.

But he gave politics another try in 2013-14 and volunteered in the campaign of a moderate Republican running for County Executive in heavily Democratic Howard County, MD. Almost miraculously, the candidate (Allan Kittleman) won, and Andy now serves as his press secretary. Andy believes television news must be improved from the top down, and is thus an enthusiastic supporter of The Kneeland Project and its efforts to nurture enlightened and humane news directors. He also served on the board of the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, where he pursued similar improvements in journalism in all its forms. Andy is married and the father of two grown children.