Watching the sun set in Laguna Beach

Editor’s note: My unedited farewell column for the Daily Pilot.

About four years ago, Tony Dodero, my boss at the time, asked me if I would like to be Times Community News’ web editor.

Me? I thought he was giving me way more credit than I deserved. I mean, we had a lot of discussions about the future of print media. By 2005 we were sure print was dead and the future was online media. Hell, I knew that 10 years or so ago. That sure doesn’t make me prescient. But you’d be surprised how backward and in denial a lot of people in our industry are when it comes to new media. Still. So, relatively speaking, Tony and I are early adopters, for what that’s worth.

I wanted the job, but I was intimidated by the technology. I didn’t know any html. But Tony insisted. He kept cajoling me. Finally, he introduced me to Dan Hontz, who was the web guru for latimes.com at the time. I confessed my fears to him.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said, adding he taught himself everything he knows.

I remembered then that’s what I’ve done through my career. I’m not one for instruction manuals. Just give me a gadget and I’ll figure it out.

Tony and I, with a great deal of help from Dan, launched TCN’s websites. Before then, our news was buried deep within latimes.com, and much of our content never made it because it wasn’t being processed through the system correctly. Yeah, I had to fix that, too.

But I loved it. I mostly managed myself. And I got back to my roots. That may sound weird, considering the new technology. But as far as I’m concerned, web editing and reporting is just like working for the wires. I got my first major-league break as a wire-service reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago. I had worked for several community newspapers throughout college and after I graduated, but I wanted to work for City News. It was where journalistic titans like Seymour Hersh and Mike Royko got their start. Even Kurt Vonnegut worked there. And the wire service was celebrating its 100th year at the time so there was so much publicity I was told they were getting up to 500 resumes a month. I had to break a metro scoop at the weekly paper I wrote for to finally get the job. It was a big story – not only did I break the news I became part of the story because I was an objective witness to a political picnic featuring illegal gambling that embarrassed the sheriff.

It was the greatest job I’ve ever had. A lot of my other reporter friends think I’m nuts. It’s like longing for boot camp. A good day there was when you didn’t get screamed at for making a mistake. Once, I covered an anti-war protest that swelled from 25 people to thousands in a matter of minutes that shut down downtown Chicago – I did that all by myself for hours as the rest of the city’s media played catch-up. That was before cell phones so I had to run from payphone to payphone. At the end of the day my boss Paul Zimbrakos said, “Atta boy.” He could have said, “You’re the greatest reporter I’ve ever worked with,” and it would have felt the same. I was elated.

I loved the madness of the wires. And I see it in web editing, blogging and the new media. I tell my colleagues who want to be web-centric that the key to it all is to go back and look at a very old media – the wires. You want your newsroom to move fast? Copy how they do it on the wires. It’s the same thing.

So it makes a twisted sort of sense that I’m being drawn back to a wire service. And the inspiration for that was really planted four years ago when Tony Dodero convinced me to be the first Times Community News web editor. It stirred something in me I thought I had forgotten.

When I heard City News Service, the wire service for Southern California, was looking for an Orange County bureau chief I just had to inquire. I wasn’t looking. I’ve really enjoyed working in Newport-Mesa. In fact, when my good friend Tony was laid off it left a huge void in the community. He was the face of the paper, along with former Publisher Tom Johnson. With both of them gone, someone had to pick up that mantle and I decided to do my best. So I started going out to community events to blog about them. In January, I covered President Obama’s inauguration on my own dime because I wanted to cover the story of my life and because I love this community. You deserve that sort of coverage. I put in many, many hours of overtime to stretch the coverage. It hasn’t been easy with all the cut-backs, but you deserve a great community newspaper.

So it was tough to move on, but when the opportunity to work at City News came I just had to take it. After all, I worked part-time for them when I first arrived in California in the fall of 1998. And, best of all, I still get to be a reporter in Orange County. I’ll still be around. I’ll just be gathering news for all of the region’s media, including the Pilot.

And you’ll still see me around the community blogging. You can keep following me here. Or keep track of me on Facebook or Twitter. I’ll be there. And on Sundays you can hear me from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on KOCI-FM (101.5) co-hosting a news-talk show with Tom Johnson.

Today’s my last day at the Pilot. More than 10 years with Times Community News coming to an end. It’s melancholy, but I’m thrilled about my future. It’s been the greatest year of my life. I’ve fallen in love and I’m moving to Laguna Beach to be with my Mona, I’m going back to the wires, and I get to stay around the community doing what I do best. Considering the lousy economy, it’s a miracle I still had a job. But to get another one that I wanted? You know the Good Lord’s going to hear me thanking him a lot for many Sundays to come.

So it’s not really goodbye. It’s hello to the rest of my life. I hope to share it with you. Keep in touch.

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