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 materially impact politics and government in Philadelphia.
Stalberg is a native Philadelphian who spent the first 35 years of his career in journalism. He is intimately familiar with the worlds of media, politics and business in the Philadelphia region.
He was responsible for editorial content and business results at the Philadelphia Daily News for 20 years until deciding he wanted to try to have a more direct effect on public life in Philadelphia. During his 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.
After leaving America’s last great city tabloid, he received one of the newspaper world’s highest honors -- the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ 2005 Leadership Award.
As head of the Committee of Seventy, he helped put government integrity high on the public agenda. He was instrumental in getting Philadelphia voters to approve two major ethics reforms by overwhelming margins, led the fight to preserve tight campaign finance limits during the 2007 municipal elections and was the most outspoken critic of racial and religious attacks engineered by stealth groups at the end of the 2007 mayoral primary.
In his new role, he often repeats a line by legendary reform Mayor 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, where he committed a gross violation of the school’s unspoken etiquette by briefly occupying a gym locker that once belonged to Wilt Chamberlain.
He majored in political science and graduated from Temple University in 1968. 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. Also, he inhaled.
After failing to make it as a political cartoonist, he entered journalism in late 1970 as a reporter at 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 -- incumbent and otherwise -- since Dilworth.
In 1973, Stalberg convinced then-Mayor Frank L. Rizzo to take a polygraph test after Rizzo was accused of offering a political bribe. Rizzo flunked the test, sparking Philadelphia’s most memorable political headline: RIZZO LIED, TESTS SHOW.
Rizzo’s career and public image never truly recovered. Stalberg’s took off.
He became City Editor of the newspaper 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 in the black within a few years.
He won the John S. Knight Gold Medal, the highest award presented by the then-owner of the newspaper, the national Knight Ridder newspaper chain.
Stalberg made his mark in journalism 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 journalist to editor-advocate and his ultimate decision to leave journalism to try to make government better, was inspired by the life and violent death of his close friend, Daily News Senior Editor Russell Byers.
Since announcing his departure from the newspaper in 2005, Stalberg has been credited with brilliantly anticipating the jolts that have since rocked and diminished the world of print journalism. Though untrue, he accepts the praise.
Four days after formally retiring from the Daily News, he accepted his new role at the sleepy Committee of Seventy. His longtime competitors at The Philadelphia Inquirer published an editorial describing him as “a showman and a pit bull.” The headline that appeared above the editorial was: STALBERG PERFECT FOR WATCHDOG GROUP.
The Committee of Seventy was founded in 1904 by a set of community leaders troubled by government corruption and abuses suffered by the waves of new immigrants. The organization had many years of glory, but by the time the City Hall “pay-to-play” scandal broke in 2003, Seventy’s mission was largely confined to election matters.
Now, the Stalberg-led Committee of Seventy is aggressively campaigning to change the political culture in Philadelphia to one that is open, honest, competent and competitive.
Zack is married to Deb Lock Stalberg, an Indiana-born horsewoman and former journalist. His three children are Erin, Ilisa and Zane, who is named after the populist western writer Zane Grey.
Stalberg’s favorite author is Graham Greene and his favorite movie is “Shane.” He drives a ragtop Jaguar and favors cowboy boots. In the unlikely event that he could ever leave Philly, he would divide his time between Montana and Rome.
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.”
