"[5] During her career, Sweet built a reputation as being committed to accountability in journalism; her philosophy is described in remarks made at 5th annual Washington Women in Journalism Awards, in 2018:[6] "The most important thing is for journalists to do the job, no matter what platform, and not be distracted by everything going on around you...Get it right, make the extra call, these principles never change.
However, she transferred in her senior year to the University of California at Berkeley, where she changed her major to Political Science; Sweet graduated in 1973.
After graduation, she worked doing odd jobs, and at a department store in Oakland, California, before enrolling at the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.
Later, Sweet became a general assignment reporter, first covering Cook County government and the Daley Center courts, gaining experience in Chicago politics.
[7][10] Christopher Beam, of Slate magazine, said of Sweet, "the first time I saw her, she was berating a Hillary advance person at a sheet metal factory in Las Vegas for refusing to hold a press availability.
[12][13][14] In 1999, when Barack Obama was running for the seat in the House of Representatives, he paid a visit to Sweet and gave her a copy of his book, Dreams from My Father, which she says she put on a bookshelf and never opened until June 2004, as his popularity rose and he had given his speech at the Democratic National Convention.
"[9] Unimpressed with his rise in popularity, she went on to add: "He returned to Chicago and worked with a law firm that gave him a lot of political network advantages, and started looking around for some office to run for, found this opening in the State Senate where he put himself in it.
When he called upon a local journalist, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, and noticed her arm was in a sling, he asked what had happened.