Muckraker Jeff Cole walking away from Fox 29 after 25 years

Jeff Cole was at Fox 29 about a year when a weird news tip came across his desk — a member of Philadelphia City Council had been driving around in a city car for years without a driver’s license.

Cole and his camera crew confronted former City Councilmember Angel Ortiz outside City Hall in November 2001 and asked if he had a driver’s license. “No,” Ortiz quietly admitted, unleashing one of the city’s oddest political scandals in the last 20 years.

“Of course, we put it on TV and the Daily News put it on the cover,” Cole recalled in an interview with the Inquirer. “And honestly, that’s when I realized, ‘Wow, I am not in Hartford, Connecticut anymore.’”

After 25 years outing corrupt politicians and an assortment of deadbeats, Cole is retiring from his muckraking gig as an investigative reporter for Fox 29. His last day at the station is Friday, and after that he and his wife plan to sell their Delaware County home and move back to southeastern Massachusetts.

So why is Cole walking away from his dream job? Age played a role in his decision — he’s 67 and has worked in television news for about 47 years — but Cole said it’s mostly about returning home to New England, being closer to his family, and a change in lifestyle.

“I am not tired of journalism. I am not fatigued, I do not want to stop doing it at all,” Cole said. “I really think it’s important to try and reposition yourself a little bit in life, to do something a little different, particularly when your partner is interested in that as well.”

Cole came to Philadelphia in March 2000 after stints in Hartford and Baltimore and succeeded in the one goal he set for himself — to do hard-hitting investigative work in a big city. He’s never been afraid to get aggressive, works hard to inform himself on the issues, and likes to describe how he questions public figures in baseball terms.

“Everything is up and in,” Cole said. “It’s chin music.”

It’s certainly been effective. In just a few examples, Cole’s reporting led to the firing of a Fairmount Park supervisor who spent more time at home than at work, and uncovered bogus claims blasted across radio and TV ads by now-defunct Windowizards. He also confronted then-Mayor John F. Street waiting in line in the middle of the workday to be one of the first people in Philadelphia to purchase an iPhone, and he’s won just about every award TV journalism has to offer.

“Jeff’s resumé speaks for itself. His skill set of getting to the bottom of things is beyond reproach,” said Jim Driscoll, Fox 29’s vice president and news director who has worked with Cole the last 13 years. “I started thinking every public official in this town is going to exhale when they hear that Jeff is retiring.”

While Cole’s speciality was going after political cheats and deadbeats, he was equally adept at pressing the city’s politicians, Driscoll said. One standout moment was Cole’s turn as a debate moderator during the 2023 Philly mayoral campaign, which featured seven Democrats vying to win the primary and effectively the election.

“Quite frankly, I think Cherelle Parker won the mayoralty that night because of that debate and how she approached Jeff’s tough questions,” Driscoll said.

One of the more memorable stories Cole reported on took place in 2008, centered on former Councilmember W. Wilson Goode Jr.’s then top aide, Latrice Bryant.

After receiving a tip, Cole and his investigative team filmed Bryant for two weeks and showed her attending to personal business while getting paid for working at City Hall. Before Cole was able to confront Bryant on camera, she flashed handwritten signs in City Council that read “Jeff Cole KKK” and “Fox 29 are racist.”

“I was actually in the hallway outside City Council chambers at the time, and my partner who was working the story with me texted me and said, ‘She’s got signs. She says you’re a member of the Klan,’” Cole recalled. “Of course, that thing just caught fire and was a story for days there.”

Bryant later apologized and defended her work habits, but Cole wasn’t finished. In a follow-up, Fox 29 broadcast photos of Goode and Bryant vacationing together in Jamaica in August 2005, fueling speculation about a romantic relationship.

Both denied such a relationship, and Bryant remained in her $90,000-a-year job until Goode lost his reelection bid in 2016 (though he quickly landed a well-paying gig as a senior policy adviser to former Council President Darrell L. Clarke). Goode also paid the $836.35 the city said Bryant owed for missing work.

Cole is looking forward to returning home to New England, but he’s not bashful about saying he’ll miss hitting the streets here in Philly, a city that’s become his second home.

“I’ve grown to absolutely love the city in a real way,” Cole said. “I go to neighborhoods and folks absolutely know me and know my stories … I find that really endearing, that I’ve been here long enough and have done the kind of work people have remembered.”

Cole grew up in a house filled with newspapers and TV news reports, so it’s not surprising two of his five siblings also ended up in the business. His other brother, John, has been a sports anchor in North Dakota for over 40 years, and his younger brother, Scott, began as a newspaper reporter on his way to becoming a senior investigator for the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission.

“We were turned on by being part of what was happening in the community, and wanted to get a piece of that action,” Cole said.

While his days of confronting folks on Fox 29 are over, Cole isn’t planning on leaving the business entirely. Once he gets settled back in Massachusetts, he might do some digital reporting on his own or work part time in some form at a media organization. He might even write an opinion piece or two. The only thing he’s sure of is he’s not ready to fully give up the life of being a journalist.

“Chasing great stories and seeing what you can break, seeing what you can report — it works off adrenaline," Cole said. “You get into this lifestyle and it’s very attractive.”