Time to move on

When I got home from my first day of work at the Press-Republican, I cried.

Fresh out of journalism school, I was hired for the only job open in the newsroom: proofreader, a less involved version of a copy editor.

One part of the job required me to collate the AP stories, which, in those days, arrived as long, paper tapes with perforations. I would number them and place them on a peg board so the editors could grab their choices.

You had to look for gaps in the perforations, which signaled the end of one story and the start of the next.

I messed up a number of times that first day by missing the gaps, which meant the editors couldn't find the stories they wanted to use. It slowed up everything.

Hence the tears when I got home.

My mother told me it would get better. It did — better enough that I eventually got the reporting job I wanted. For years, I wrote stories, took photos and immersed myself in covering what was happening around the North Country.

Later, I became regional editor, then news editor and, six years ago, editor in chief.

I didn't plan to spend my entire career at the Press-Republican or in my hometown. But I fell in love with community journalism and never left.

I have been at the newspaper as we covered some of the biggest stories ever to unfold in our region.

There was news that turned into months of coverage, including the 1980 Winter Olympics, the closure of Plattsburgh Air Force Base in 1995, the Ice Storm of 1998 and the 2015 escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. We worked weeks without a day off for those.

We covered more horrifying murders, untimely deaths and other tragedies than I can name, along with fires, floods, crimes and accidents. Those were always hard to cover; we empathized as community members.

But our stories on local people and their challenges and triumphs also touched hearts and moved others to action.

We always fought for the public's right to know what government was doing.

I worked alongside so many amazing, hardworking journalists over the years and learned something from every one of them. Like every paper, we always had too few people trying to do too much work.

People have been telling me for decades that newspapers are dying, but I know how very wrong they are. I hear all the time from customers who can't get through their day without reading the Press-Republican cover to cover.

They want to know what is happening in their communities, and they know only a daily newspaper (in print and online) can deliver it with speed, breadth and depth.

Sometimes people tell me they don't know how we can create a whole new paper full of news every day. Truthfully, that isn't the hard part — it's the ethical decisions that are the biggest challenge.

We fully understand the impact a newspaper can have on lives, reputations, the way history is viewed. So we weigh carefully what to cover, how to report it, where to play the story.

I have been in on so many difficult decisions over the years. I know we have helped people and hurt people, but we always tried to do what seemed most fair.

After almost 42 years, I will be retiring on March 23. It was a hard decision because I have invested so much of my heart — and time — in this job. I am as comfortable in the newsroom as I am in my living room. The Press-Republican feels like home.

I can't imagine a life where I am not on deadline every minute, where I don't have to suddenly change my whole day's direction because of breaking news, where I am not surrounded by nonstop energy.

But my husband has been retired for almost six years, and it is time now to try a different kind of adventure.

I am sure I will take with me a little piece of all the stories I covered, all the people I worked with, all the satisfaction I found in my career.

I am also sure that when I get home from my last day of work at the Press-Republican, just like on my first, I will cry.