From the dark center of the Eagle newsroom, greetings. I'm Gary Catt, executive editor of Eagle Newspapers. I've come to this calling after a career that's swerved through a half-dozen daily newspapers and an ad agency that was once the world's largest. Along the way I've written or edited most everything and an I've guided successful strategies around times of difficulty for Fortune 50 companies. My job here is to make sure that when you pick up your Eagle community newspaper it's a like a walk down main street, spotting faces you know; discovering news you need to know.
A little more than a year ago, a resume crossed my desk at the Palladium Times in Oswego where I was the editor before stepping up to this position. The applicant had written rec sports for the paper and was then studying at Cayuga Community College. I remember getting up from my desk and walking to the doorway of my office. Across the newsroom, I barked to the sports editor. "Hey, you know this Gosek guy?"
The sports editor rolled his eyes.
"Yep."
"Well, how'd he do with rec stuff?," I asked.
The questioning went on for a two or three more rounds before it dawned on me.
"Is he...?"
"Yep."
He was the son of the former mayor who had run into trouble and was jailed.
The moment did -- quite literally -- leave me flummoxed. My hour-long drive home that night to was spent in the past.
Bob Boyle's face came quickly to mind. Boyle, who died about a dozen years ago, was a grizzled editor, his skills fused by travels through the rough and tumble dailies in Pennsylvania's Coal Regions.
Balding, squat, his tie always a bit soiled and at half mast, he glared up at the young Army vet standing in front of him with a 10-line resume that I don't recall he even looked at.
"What do you know how to write?"
"Uh...a lot of things."
"Go out there (He gestured to the newsroom.) and write me a weather story."
Boyle looked at the four typed paragraphs I brought back. The page was black with strikeover corrections.
He looked up from the paper; a lopsided smile...but maybe a sneer ... pulled down one end of his mouth.
"Come in tomorrow. You have three days to cut it or you're out."
Someone was actually going to pay me to write!
Boyle's been in my thoughts again over the past few days.
Chris Gosek, who's been a star reporter at the PallTimes is moving on. He and his young family are moving to North Carolina where Chris has found work at a larger paper and his wife has found the teaching job she's sought for awhile now.
Gracious, as always, Chris dropped me a note of farewell and thanked me for taking a chance on him at a time when his life was at a low ebb. He asked me to stay in touch. I will.
I hope where ever Boyle's spending this time, he's watching, a corner of his mouth pulled down in that odd way that was half a smile.
