MUM TAUGHT ME THE ME VALUE OF SCEPTICISM

first tried journalism at age 6. My family was living in Beijing, and I handwrote a two-page newsletter for US ex-pats.

- Joe Mathews

After I made a mistake, the LA Times’ Beijing bureau chief shared with me an old journalistic adage about how we must doublecheck everything—even things about which we are certain.

That adage: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

I've never forgotten the lesson. Not least because the journalist who shared it was my very own mother.

My mother taught me much about journalism. But, with world Mother’s Day approaching next Sunday, and our profession in crisis, Mum's lessons about love seem urgent.

Her biggest lesson: true love is conveyed not just through hugs and trust, but via relentless questioning — a habit.

Linda McVeigh Mathews was born in Redlands, where her grandparents migrated during the Dust Bowl, but grew up in Hawthorne, near LAX. Neither of her parents — an aviation assembly-line worker and a custodian — went beyond high school.

Mum, through intelligence and perseverance, won a scholarship to Harvard and jointed The Crimson, the campus newspaper, where she met my father, who also became journalist.