Campbell: A smart, passionate NY journalist

Forty-year-old Julia Campbell of Fairfax, Virginia, was a “smart and passionate" journalist in New York before she packed her bags for Manila and did volunteer work for the US Peace Corps . The New York Daily News said Campbell had worked for the city’s several media outlets for more than a decade. In 1997, the newspaper said Campbell, who was then a freelance reporter for The Times, made headlines for herself when she was arrested for allegedly inciting a riot during the Brooklyn funeral procession for slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. The charges were later dismissed. "She was smart and passionate [as a journalist]," said Catherine Quayle, a close friend of Campbell "[but] she wanted to change gears in her life and do things that were a little more meaningful." Quayle is an editor of Court TV’s Web site in the US. Meanwhile, John Cutter, senior editor for online news of the Orlando Sentinel said in his blog http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_orlandocrime that he was expecting Campbell’s “radical" decision of becoming a volunteer. “From what I remember about Julia, it sounds like a move I can see her making, despite being at a stage in life and her career where many of us would be thinking of doing anything BUT making such a radical change," said Cutter. Cutter was a friend and former colleague of Campbell. He said he worked with Campbell at the St. Petersburg Times in the early ‘90s. She also worked for the People magazine a few years ago until Cutter lost track of his friend who went to the Philippines in 2005. Campbell also contributed a story to CNN about death and destruction in the wake of supertyphoon that hit Legaspi, Albay in November. -GMANews.TV