It seems that when you are closing a decades-long chapter in your life, you should have something profound to say. Literary. Memorable. Passionate and heart-felt.
Passionate and heart-felt I can do.
I am stepping out of my CEO role at inewsource, the nonprofit newsroom I founded more than 16 years ago, and moving into a new world called retirement. I’m passing the torch into capable hands: a new CEO I mentored. A team of leaders who’ve already made me proud.
But while I’m looking forward to what comes next, the change is bittersweet. For me, retiring means ending a journalism career that has consumed all of my adult life.
Driven by curiosity and a child-of-the-’60s distrust of authority, I worked on my high school and college papers and started reporting at community newspapers on both coasts. I covered everything from sewer boards to the township 4th of July parade.
Reporting is one of the best jobs on the planet because you get paid to learn (what is an EIR and a habeas corpus?) and you always have a front seat on the world.
I interviewed two famous actors – Jimmy Stewart and Vincent Price – who both abruptly ended our interaction by yelling at me for asking unpleasant questions.
I covered murders and plane crashes and Supreme Court decisions. I witnessed the first execution in California in 25 years. My reporting took me across San Diego, up and down California and even to Australia.
As an editor, I guided some of this region’s best reporters, many of whom were involved in coverage at the San Diego Union-Tribune that unseated a corrupt congressman and sent him to prison.
In my journalism saga’s final episode, I built inewsource, a new newsroom for San Diego County to fill some of the information void created by the shrinking of commercial media. Launched in 2009, it was one of the nation’s first local nonprofit journalism organizations.
I have always viewed my job as one of public service, meant to change laws and improve lives. It’s been my responsibility, at the very least, to make people think. To ponder information they didn’t have before. To recognize a viewpoint they hadn’t considered.
I really do believe, without hesitation, that local reporting can alter history. Shining a light in dark corners can expose all kinds of misdeeds and neglect, that left to moulder would harm us all.
Over the years, reporters and editors at inewsource have carried out that mission with admirable impact.
They have delved into state-paid units that house people being kept alive on machines. They’ve exposed a doctor who was hawking an unproven treatment for diabetes. They’ve investigated deaths and drug overdoses at a nationally recognized veterans treatment center in San Diego. And, their investigation into illegal rent increases saved money for thousands of tenants.
Our unique visual storytelling in 2024 told of the horrors of the fentanyl scourge in a new way. It was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, considered the highest honor in journalism circles.
But while the recognition of our peers through prizes is nice, it isn’t why we do this hard work.
It’s for you, your friends, family, neighbors. It’s to help keep democracy strong.
As I leave the structured world of journalism, I won’t be shaking it off. The ink is in my blood. I will continue to be a resource to inewsource and a member of its development committee. I will continue to be involved with the national Institute for Nonprofit News, particularly through its membership standards task force.
I am thankful to have had this tough, wild, exhilarating ride, and thankful to all of you who make local journalism a priority.
