M.C.,
I want to thank you and your readers for your outpouring of concern about the fate of the Pelican Press and its stable of writers. An entire chorus of voices was silenced with one swoop of the axe. Only time will tell if this storied community newspaper will retain the affection of its readership of 40 years. Or maintain its journalistic excellence – its awards from the Florida Press Association literally cover the walls. If there was a huge award for excellence in every conceivable category (even agricultural writing!) the Pelican would qualify several times over.
Rachel Hackney is the only survivor, she’s staying on as the Managing Editor, and I know she carries a heavy weight of local expectations on her shoulders. But her scope of action now is limited, and she should not carry the brunt of reader disappointment. So many times she’s said to me, “That’s a great story. We’ll make room for it.” Or “We need that in the paper. We’ll extend the deadline to get it in.” Those decisions are no longer hers. She’s a pro with all that implies.
As editors at the Pelican, Anne Johnson, and then Rachel Hackney, maintained a tradition of “bound volumes” – keeping every Pelican from Volume One, Number One, intact in huge books. Row upon row upon row of them, the first drafts of Siesta Key’s history, from 1971 to now. My very first newspaper story is in there, datelined Dec.16, 1982, a financial story: “County debts could quadruple by 1984 if bond issues okayed.” (They were, and they did and then some over the next quarter-century). And it’s all there between the covers.
It is passé in this electronic age to keep “bound volumes,” and I’m sure Matt Walsh will eschew this tradition. But it was this same tradition that kept the paper going through ups and downs, through pay cuts and staff reductions, because we were standing in a long line of distinguished and talented people who believed our readers had a right to know. And to know in detail.
I wish Matt and his Observer Group good luck and good fortune is a struggling industry. Dead-tree journalism could soon be an anachronism, and I’ve said so in front of both Walsh and the SHT”s executive editor Mike Connelly at a chamber round-table. All we can offer is trust, and I hope the new Pelican will maintain the paper’s 40-year pact with its readers for fairness, accuracy and honesty.
This “pelican” was lucky enough to find a new “nest” at SarasotaPatch.com, a “hyper-local” news site similarly dedicated. Its editor and I won an award from the Florida Press Association earlier this month for our investigative journalism at the Pelican. To my other friends and colleagues at the Pelican, I send my support and appreciation for their accomplishments as fellow “ink-stained wretches.” It is no sin to reach for the stars.
I send a special bouquet to Anne Johnson, who isn’t exactly the founding editor of the Pelican but certainly is the woman who crafted, molded and created the paper we knew and loved. She too was lopped off, after 38 years, without even a good-bye to the two generations of readers she slaved for.
That’s my only real regret – and it would have been such a touch of class, such a handoff – Matt’s refusal to allow the old Pelican hands to say goodbye and welcome the new hands. It was, for staff, the ultimate hostile takeover. “Mine now, you’re gone.” The old Pelican gave you the opportunity to say goodbye when the previous corporate owners canned you for writing truth-to-power. You know well, M.C., how that catharsis eased the pain for you and readers alike.
I guess this is really my “goodbye.” I wish it could reach all my readers, but M.C.’s circle will have to do.
We tried very hard – every one of us pelicans – to do the best we knew how to do. Because we knew the standards were high, the expectations higher. And we did our best on deadline every week to capture the importance, the essence, the heart of what we thought Siesta Key wanted to know.
Goodbye, Pelican Press. Hello, Pelican Press.
Stan Zimmerman