Folks,
I wanted to explain my thinking about leaving.
The editor’s job just doesn’t fit me anymore the way it needs to. Important work demands to be done here by an editor who is in synch with those above him. My best assessment is I’m not that editor. Jeff asked me to stick around for several weeks while we decided whether the fit was right; leaving now is my call.
Please don’t let my decision guide you. If I were a reporter in a beat I was happy with, I wouldn’t even think about leaving The Courant. This is one of the great places to do journalism. Why? Because you and your predecessors over 244 years have made it so. Because literate, committed readers make it so.
A few of you remember that I once actually was a reporter in a beat I was happy with. When I started covering state government in 1981, I got some wise advice from a veteran reporter. He told me to get to know the state auditors – and from them I got story after story. I mention this because that reporter was George Gombossy.
And I mention that because what George and I have gone through should provide hope to any of you who are shaken today. George was already a great reporter then, a hero to me, and he went on to dig up big story after big story. I moved on through a series of editing jobs. Eventually I had one big enough that I was George’s boss, and I pushed him out of a job because I thought it wasn’t the best fit. But within a very short time George took control, seizing the opportunity to become a consumer reporter. His work as our “Watchdog” has been the model for the aggressive, locally-based, useful coverage you must continue. “Life is long,” a former editor of ours was fond of saying. Life is also manufactured daily – and George can be your guide in doing that.
I hope to talk with as many of you as possible before I leave, and let the rest of you who are so inclined buy me a coffee or some other suitable beverage sometime after my departure. Beyond that, my plans are to stain my deck and walk up and down a favorite beach many times. Then I’ll start to think about what comes next.
Whatever and wherever that is, my heart will be with you and what you do.
With the deepest respect, appreciation and affection,
Cliff
cliffteutsch@gmail.com
860-658-9300 (h)
860-214-1266 (c) (may change)
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Well, two more good people have left the paper. It was a pleasure working with both Cliff and Bobbie.
Compare Cliff’s gracious remarks with the leaden, malevolent dismissal by the publisher. Those fools don’t realize what a horrible loss Cliff’s departure will be.
There is no one to stand between the staff and these madmen; there is no one to protect the readers’ interests from the sloganeering malpracticers left behind. No one.
Has any of the former editors or journalists let go by the Courant over the last few years thought about joining forces online? Greater Hartford could use an online news source similar to what New Haven has in the web-based “Independent”. The model seems to be working for them and it’s a throw back to the old days before mega corporations took over and greedily ruined the business. It’s something worth considering if you’re not ready to throw in the towel on journalism yet. Just my two cents. In any event, best of luck wherever the future takes you. God bless.