Phillips came to the InternationalHerald Tribune from The Washington Post where he was transportation reporter for 15 years. He had joined
The Post in 1985. He was weekend National editor for three years, and also helped the Congressional staff for a year during a staff shortage
before taking the transportation beat.
Phillips specialized in aviation and rail safety, airlines and railroads as a business, the ups and downs of Amtrak, transportation legislation in Congress and the politics of transportation. He covered every major airline crash and train wreck during this period, beginning with the crash of a United Airlines DC-10 in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989. In later years, he covered the crash of a Valujet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades, the mystery crash of US Air Boeing 737 at Pittsburgh, the explosion of a Trans World Airlines Boeing 747 off Long Island, the Crash of a Swissair MD-11 near
Halifax and the downing of an Egyptair jet shortly after takeoff from New York. He had a hand in covering numerous European, South American, African and Asian crashes, working through sources in the United States and Europe. He also closely followed the railroad industry and occasionally did stories on ocean shipping, waterways and highways. From 1965 to 1985, Phillips was an editor and reporter with United Press International in Atlanta and Washington. He covered Georgia politics and government during the administration of Gov. Lester Maddox, and helped cover the civil rights movement while in Atlanta, moving to Washington with UPI in 1970.
After a brief period as an editor, Phillips became a Capitol Hill reporter and head of the UPI staff of the House of Representatives for 11 years. Although transportation was not his main responsibility with UPI, he covered legislation deregulating all of the transportation modes and occasionally did other stories on aviation and railroading including the formation of Amtrak in 1971 and the creation of Conrail from the lines of bankrupt Eastern and Midwestern railroads in 1976.
Phillips attended Auburn University in Alabama where he became editor of the student newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, in 1964. He also worked part time for two local newspapers, the Lee County Bulletin and the Tuskegee News, and was an intern for The Atlanta Constitution
during the summer before becoming editor of The Plainsman.
He was born in Birmingham, Ala.,and went to elementary school and high school in Talladega, Ala.
Broadcast Experience: CNN, NPR,PBS
Based: Paris