I found out Wayne had died while on deadline.
I had just finished proofing my last page and was waiting for the copy editor to make the corrections and drop it into the system for final approval when I pulled up Facebook.
An old friend and former boss, Carl Whitehill, had posted a link to Wayne Kindness's obituary with the words, "Sad news ... good memories at The Evening Sun."
I felt my stomach drop.
"OH NO," I typed before clicking on the link.
The 69-year-old had been battling health problems since I met him in May 2001. He'd been in and out of the hospital several times over the past year, as he noted in his Facebook postings. So I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise.
Still, I couldn't help but feel shocked.
He was the assistant city editor at The Evening Sun in Hanover, Pa., for many years. Before that, he'd been a reporter, photographer and copy editor, and even run his own dirt-track racing publication.
He was a good guy and a good journalist.
He had a police scanner by his side at the desk — bringing in his own, not relying on the two already squawking in the newsroom.
After our 9 a.m. deadline (before his hip surgery) he'd bring a honeybun or bear claw or other sweet pastry back from the break room vending machine before setting to work on the next day's ROP pages.
But perhaps the thing I'll remember most about him was the way he told people how to spell his last name.
"Wayne Kindness. Just like 'love and....'"
Rest easy, big guy.
Showing posts with label journalist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalist. Show all posts
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Still going
A15.
That was the last page of The Herald-Mail that I laid out that will be printed at the Frederick News-Post.
Our company has found it cheaper and more flexible for us to print our newspaper in Mechanicsburg, Pa., on the presses of the Patriot-News. The press here in Hagerstown was removed a few years ago, a casualty of expensive repairs and too few parts.
I've witnessed newspaper transitions before. I've watched computer systems evolve... and devolve. I've watched printing presses stop printing forever. I've watched entire jobs be outsourced and centralized.
You'd think I'd be used to it.
In some sense, I am. The new deadlines brought on by the switch — they're a lot earlier — have caused me some consternation, but not the gut-churning borne by others in the newsroom.
Our publisher has said that the reader knows we, as a printed product, must "close the gate" once every 24 hours. We'll just be closing the gate earlier. The content will be in the paper, just on a different cycle, he said.
He's right.
Sure, people can visit our website, but not everyone does, particularly the older generation. And we're the only game in town when it comes to detailed stories about the happenings in Washington County, Md., and beyond. Television will parachute in, and even then, they'll only gloss over the story.
In other words, our product still has value to a significant group of customers.
But here's why I am feeling a little uneasy. It's not because of the here-and-now of this printing change. It's because of the dramatic shifts I've seen in the industry since I started 15 years ago.
It seems as though things have accelerated faster in the news business over that decade and a half than they had in the previous 30 years combined.
The Internet, social media, smart phones and tablets have led to the "digital first" philosophy. More news outlets will follow that path as their print readers shift their habits — or die.
I wish I could say that A15 had some ground-breaking story or really cool layout on it, to help mark the last time I put a page into the FTP program (called CyberDuck, by the way).
But it didn't.
Probably 80 percent of the page was advertising, leaving me enough room to run the weekly best-sellers list, printed Thursdays in Publishers Weekly, and an Associated Press story about how one of the Fiats used by Pope Francis on his visit to Philadelphia was sold at auction for $82,000 (the money benefited various Catholic charities).
Then again, books and the Catholic Church have had to weather many storms over the decades and centuries, even as the times have changed.
And they're still going.
That was the last page of The Herald-Mail that I laid out that will be printed at the Frederick News-Post.
Our company has found it cheaper and more flexible for us to print our newspaper in Mechanicsburg, Pa., on the presses of the Patriot-News. The press here in Hagerstown was removed a few years ago, a casualty of expensive repairs and too few parts.
I've witnessed newspaper transitions before. I've watched computer systems evolve... and devolve. I've watched printing presses stop printing forever. I've watched entire jobs be outsourced and centralized.
You'd think I'd be used to it.
In some sense, I am. The new deadlines brought on by the switch — they're a lot earlier — have caused me some consternation, but not the gut-churning borne by others in the newsroom.
Our publisher has said that the reader knows we, as a printed product, must "close the gate" once every 24 hours. We'll just be closing the gate earlier. The content will be in the paper, just on a different cycle, he said.
He's right.
Sure, people can visit our website, but not everyone does, particularly the older generation. And we're the only game in town when it comes to detailed stories about the happenings in Washington County, Md., and beyond. Television will parachute in, and even then, they'll only gloss over the story.
In other words, our product still has value to a significant group of customers.
But here's why I am feeling a little uneasy. It's not because of the here-and-now of this printing change. It's because of the dramatic shifts I've seen in the industry since I started 15 years ago.
It seems as though things have accelerated faster in the news business over that decade and a half than they had in the previous 30 years combined.
The Internet, social media, smart phones and tablets have led to the "digital first" philosophy. More news outlets will follow that path as their print readers shift their habits — or die.
I wish I could say that A15 had some ground-breaking story or really cool layout on it, to help mark the last time I put a page into the FTP program (called CyberDuck, by the way).
But it didn't.
Probably 80 percent of the page was advertising, leaving me enough room to run the weekly best-sellers list, printed Thursdays in Publishers Weekly, and an Associated Press story about how one of the Fiats used by Pope Francis on his visit to Philadelphia was sold at auction for $82,000 (the money benefited various Catholic charities).
Then again, books and the Catholic Church have had to weather many storms over the decades and centuries, even as the times have changed.
And they're still going.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)