A great one gets away

I feel a little dumber this week, because I know Catherine Lucey isn’t at her desk at the Daily News city hall bureau anymore.

She finished a 12-year career at the paper Friday, leaving with more than 2,000 stories under her byline on subjects ranging from celebrity gossip to police corruption. But it’s her coverage of city politics and government that I most treasured. For several years now, she’s been Philadelphia’s most knowledgeable and authoritative reporter on what goes on in the halls of power here.I met Catherine at the Daily News when she was a young police beat reporter, covering crime and everything that relates to it with grit and hustle, developing sources, asking tough questions and dealing with some pretty antiquated ideas about women in the roundhouse.We got know each other better when Catherine wanted to get into political coverage, and I was supposed to show her the ropes. She didn’t need much showing, and it wasn’t long before she was breaking news and doing important enterprise and analytical reporting.I’m glad to say that while we’re losing Catherine, journalism isn’t. She’ll be in Des Moines, covering Iowa state politics for the Associated Press.She’ll cover presidential candidates cultivating support for the 2016 Iowa caucuses, and I have no doubt she’ll leave her mark on the heartland and plenty of other places. But I’ll miss her, and so should anybody who cares about what goes on in Philadelphia.