Dave’s Journey

Dave Schechter entered journalism as a 3-year-old, tracing newspaper headlines. His first byline, at age 13, was in a mimeographed junior high school newspaper. He graduated to high school and college newspapers before turning professional in June 1978. His first full-time paycheck came at a newspaper in Davenport, Iowa, covering a community that straddled the Illinois and Iowa sides of the Mississippi River. He "crossed the street" to television in 1983, first in Moline, Illinois, and a few months later in Kansas City, Missouri.
He and his wife (keep reading) left the U.S. for Israel in October 1985.

After ditching a study program during field trips to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, he was hired as producer in the Jerusalem bureau of Cable News Network. On their return to the United States, both began work in the summer of 1987 at CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Dave worked on the national news desk in various capacities for more than 26 years.
After leaving CNN, Dave began freelancing in February 2015 for the Atlanta Jewish Times and other publications, primarily in the Jewish world. HIs articles and columns have received awards from the American Jewish Press Association, the Religion News Association, and the Atlanta Press Club.
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Dave met Audrey Galex — a journalist, storyteller, and children's book author — while covering a political event two days before the November 1980 election. They were married in April 1985 in Kansas City, where she also worked at the television station. In Israel, she completed the study program and joined him in CNN's Jerusalem bureau. At CNN in Atlanta, she was a writer, producer, and reporter for various programs. Audrey later worked as executive producer and community engagement manager for AIB-TV (formerly Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters).
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Dave and Audrey are the parents of three grown children and cater to two granddogs. When not in his home office, at the same table on which he did homework as a boy, Dave can be found watching too much soccer, possibly listening to jazz, and sometimes working in the garden.
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"A Life of the Party" is Dave's first book, a work of historical fiction 25 years in the making, based on the life of his great-aunt Amy, who devoted more than four decades to the Communist Party, with adventures that took her across the United States and to Russia.