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TOUGH: A new chapter begins for a fine journalist, good friend
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Published: June 1, 2008
A brief item on the Journal's business pages Wednesday said that three of the newspaper's employees had been "let go" the day before in the continuing effort to "reduce costs." It did not name the employees, which I suppose is pretty standard in such business coverage.
But one of those who was fired (no matter what euphemism you use for it) was a regular whose writings and face appeared nearly every Sunday on this page, so it seems to me he ought to be mentioned by name.
These are indeed, as the business-news item noted, tough times for the newspaper industry. They've been tough since before The Sentinel, Winston-Salem's late, lamented afternoon paper, closed in 1985, and they don't seem to be getting better. There have been various buyouts, layoffs and the slow, painful dripping away of good employees -- not to be replaced -- that is known as "attrition." Tuesday, when I lost Paul O'Connor as a full-time employee, ranks down there for me as one of the toughest days of all.
The news item identified Paul only as "an editorial writer and columnist who worked from his office in Raleigh." Most of that is accurate as far as it goes, although the office was just a desk, a phone and a computer in his home. Though accurate, the rest of the description neither does justice to Paul nor conveys what a blow his departure will be to these opinion pages.
Paul, writing for a variety of publications, has long been one of the most knowledgeable and respected (he prefers to be called "disrespected") journalists writing about North Carolina state government. He started writing unsigned editorials part time for the Journal a dozen or so years ago and gradually moved into full-time status, adding his signed column for the Sunday op-ed page nine years ago. Our pages have been much the richer for his contributions.
Paul is the consummate professional journalist. He understands the intricacies of budgets, taxes and all sorts of public-policy issues, and he knows how to slice through the euphemisms and bureaucratese to lay things out in clear English. He's also relentlessly intolerant of corruption, sleaze, cronyism and incompetence, and he doesn't mince words when lighting into offenders. He's been an equal-opportunity critic, blasting Democrats or Republicans with enthusiasm. Week after week in his signed columns, he displayed his thorough yet objective understanding of state politics. Occasionally, he ventured into more personal topics, pulling aside the professional curtain slightly to reveal a little of his distinctive (should we say eccentric?) Irish-Italian personality. Those more personal columns also revealed a little of this curmudgeonly journalist's warmth and essential decency.
When he wrote the unsigned editorials that are the expression of the Journal's institutional opinion, Paul obviously relished the opportunity to be righteous and indignant and tell others what they should do and think. Hiring him with the mission of writing hard-hitting, straight-talking editorials was like telling a border collie to mind the sheep. Please don't throw him in the briar patch.
So, if Paul is so great, why was he fired Tuesday? These are undeniably difficult times for newspapers as they try to figure out how to remain profitable while revenues drop, more readers find their news online and the economy is struggling. Our news staff has been cut repeatedly over the last few years; even though our editorial staff was comparatively small to begin with, our turn came last week.
Paul's departure will hit the rest of our department hard. He was not just "an editorial writer in Raleigh"; more to the point, he was one of only two editorial writers on the staff. That leaves us with one, and, when he's on vacation, no one whose job description is editorial writer. There will be some adjustments as we figure out how to use our resources to serve the readers as best we can.
Personally, I will miss Paul also because through years of talking for at least 20 or 30 minutes first thing every morning, we have become good friends. We've talked about which issues to tackle in editorials, of course, and about what the Journal's position should be. But we've also talked about our kids, our friends, our vacations and lack of vacations, and all sorts of things. We've talked, too, about the state of the newspaper industry, an industry that we've both loved and devoted our lives to.
Paul is no fool. He also teaches journalism at UNC Chapel Hill, and he will be doing more of that. He'll continue to do some writing for us on a contract basis, although not his signed column. He had, in fact, been working to move to more teaching and a reduced role at the Journal; he just hadn't planned to make the change quite this soon.
So Paul will be fine. He said last week he worries more about those of us who are still here. So do I. And about the readers, and the newspaper business. I think the big bosses will figure it out eventually, because democracy needs professional, independent journalists, and the Internet needs solid, well researched and clearly written content.
It's just not very pleasant getting to that other side.
■ Linda Brinson is the Journal's editorial-page editor. She can be reached at lbrinson@wsjournal.com.
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