Newsmakers: Julia Terruso leads Philadelphia Inquirer pope coverage, from Philly to Rome

When Julia Terruso started out writing theater reviews for her high school paper, she never imagined she would someday travel to Rome to cover the pope’s visit to America.

Terruso (’11), a staff writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer, spent the last four months covering Philadelphia’s preparations for the pope’s September visit.

She wrote about the inmates who would get to meet the pope when he visited a local prison. She interviewed Aretha Franklin as the singer drove from Detroit to perform. She profiled the city’s director of emergency management, who prepared for the “what-if outcomes,” such as a hurricane or mass dehydration.

But the best stories, she said, were the ones she found in the crowd.

“Thousands of immigrants who had been camped out for hours stood to hear him speak. I met people from Germany, Colombia, Africa and all over the United States and the Philadelphia region,” Terruso said.

The visit brought in an estimated 800,000 people, putting the city in the international spotlight.

Terruso traveled to Rome in June to observe a meeting between Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia and the mayor of the Vatican as they put the final touches on the plans for the trip.

When the pope came to Philadelphia, Terruso covered two of the largest events — his speech on immigration at Independence Hall and the Papal Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where she had to be screened by Secret Service “hours and hours” ahead of time.

The pope’s visit is just the latest in a series of memorable stories Terruso has covered since graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in newspaper journalism.

She covered Hurricane Sandy and dozens of high-profile homicide trials for The Star-Ledger, then the Philadelphia mayor’s race for the Inquirer. She now works in the Inquirer’s city hall bureau, sharing an office with a few colleagues.

Before covering city hall, Terruso covered Camden, New Jersey, where she wrote about extreme poverty with a particular interest in changes to the city school district. Her favorite story was about the life of a high school senior, Lorenz.

For several months, Terruso went everywhere with Lorenz, who lived with her mother and had a brother in prison. That included prom dress shopping and graduation, where Lorenz was recognized as valedictorian. Terruso witnessed how Lorenz’s brother inspired her to do better, and how Lorenz also inspired her brother to be someone better.  

Working for the Inquirer was the ideal job for Terruso. “It was the paper on the kitchen table while I was growing up,” she said.

Terruso cites her work at The Daily Orange, where she was an assistant copy editor  and assistant news editor her sophomore and junior years, as valuable experience.
“Working for The D.O. gave me a confidence boost I’m not sure other reporters starting out had,” she said. “It taught me — early on — the excitement of a scoop and a good story and, probably most importantly, that in such an individualized profession, your co-workers are a needed and valuable support system.”