Good luck to a great journalist

It is important to understand the 1/6 anniversary

Ken Tingley

Jan 05, 2022

Morning Update

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

By Ken Tingley

Will Doolittle didn’t do his career justice Tuesday in his farewell column in The Post-Star.

That’s just one man’s opinion, but I think I should know. I worked with Will for more than 25 years. When I was sports editor and was ready to publish a takeout piece for which I was especially proud, I made sure that Will had the final look at it.

That relationship became even closer when I started writing a news column. He made me a better writer.

More importantly, Will became the guy behind the in-depth-projects at the newspaper. In those early days, we often had more than a dozen people working on a project. Will was often the editor who organized the reporting, fine-tuned the direction and demanded only writing of the highest caliber.

Will later confessed that the projects he led did not bring him the greatest satisfaction. He wanted to do his own journalism, his own projects that might make a difference. When he had the opportunity to do that, he changed people’s lives, including one veteran who had been shortchanged his benefits for years.

Another project on the heavy-handed enforcement of every minute regulation by the Adirondack Park Agency led to community outrage and eventually changes in how the state agency operated.

Great journalism can do that.

When a local restauranteur was frustrated by his inability to get a liquor license, Will chronicled the long waits that businesspeople were experiencing. The Legislature eventually streamlined the application process.

In between, Will edited copy regularly, wrote a weekly column and was ready to jump into any argument or controversy in or outside the newsroom.

Four years ago, Will came into my office to tell me that his wife had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and they wanted to do a regular podcast that might help people dealing with the same diagnosis.

That was Will and that podcast was honored annually in the state journalism contest.

Will was no stranger to journalism honors and was even named national journalist of the year once.

He had so many plaques, he once admitted to me that he was using them to hold open the old windows in the bedroom.

When I retired in 2020, Will was my sounding board for my book “The Last American Newspaper, giving me feedback and advice as I meandered through the process.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Will has been out on family leave the last couple months and he finally announced his retirement on Tuesday. He is also in the process of writing a book. I can’t wait to read it.

Losing a journalist with the talents and institutional knowledge of Will Doolittle is a tremendous loss for the community. When one former Post-Star journalist heard the news, they emailed “When the good ones leave, they leave a hole.”

And that chasm is not easily filled.

1/6 anniversary

Joe Seeman’s Saratoga-Warren-Washington Progressive Action group will be marking the 1/6 anniversary Thursday evening from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Centennial Circle.

I’m not sure if this sad day is worth a rally downtown, but it is an event every American should understand.

Most of us were left too exhausted by the Trump administration and the aftermath of the 2020 election to follow the ongoing political maneuvering that could lead to more problems in the 2024 election. It is not who is voting that we should be concerned about, but who is charged with counting the vote. That appears to be what is happening in states all across the country.

That is something we all need to pay attention to.

Quote of the Day

Jedediah Britton-Purdy is a professor of constitutional law at Columbia University who is writing a book about American democracy. He wrote this in an opinion piece in the New York Times this week about the messy state of democracy:

“Walter Lippmann, perhaps the most prominent intellectual of the short American Century, reckoned that citizens were ignorant, confused and emotional. Democracy brought “an intensification of feeling and a degradation of significance” to whatever it touched. If (James) Madison and Lippmann could have seen the “QAnon Shaman” break into the Capitol, then meander around like a tourist whose phone has lost its signal, they would have muttered, “This is what democracy looks like.”

Quitting jobs

Americans continue to quit their jobs in record numbers. But the reasons why continues to be quite American.

Most of those who have quit their jobs were lower-wage workers in the hospitality industry who have found new opportunities that pay more. That sounds like capitalism to me.