My boss at the Dana Foundation died today. The New York Times obit sketches his personality pretty well. He kept us here on our toes, for sure, and was correcting proof pages for one of our publications not even two weeks ago.
During my interview with him in 2003 to get the Web reporter job, he asked how I came down on the question of internments at Guantanamo (in my previous job I had written editorials for the Baltimore Sun about it). I started saying, “At the Sun, we took the position…” and he said, no, what do you think about it? So I told him, knowing it had to be opposite his view. We snit-snatted back and forth in a friendly way about it, and I figured I’d lost the job but at least I had one story to tell.
Turned out I was wrong, I was hired that week and now have three years’ worth of experiences. But I don’t tell those stories, mostly because he seemed such a private person, despite the TV appearances and high-profile columns. Let him define himself.
I’m going quiet for a while, to think about things I don’t need to type out loud. As Safire often said after explaining why I’d done something wrong or directing me on how to play a story on the Web: Keep the faith.
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