Onward and upward for The Press

This is my final edition as editor of The Riverdale Press. I will be with the paper another week, but the Oct. 31 edition will be the first to feature my successor’s name in the mastheads here and on page 2.

More on my successor in a bit.

Prior to my arrival at The Riverdale Press in March, I hadn’t worked in the business, as we refer to it, since the very beginning of the pandemic. When I saw the opportunity to take The Press editor’s chair, I jumped at it. I’ve always loved working with young reporters, and I just missed The Business in general.

Then I got the job and I realized within days I’d made a colossal mistake.

When I started, there was a story about me taking the job on the front page of the paper that week. You won’t remember, but that story described some of my experience going back to 2012 as an editor in Westchester County and Co-op City here in the Bronx. It was meant to sound impressive and give you confidence the paper was in good hands.

And it has been in good hands, but not the best hands it could be.

The truth is I’ve done jobs just like this one three other times in my career and though I would have sworn to whatever you believe in I wanted to do it a fourth time, I didn’t.

Realizing that, but knowing I still owed you the paper you deserve, was painful.

I decided to give it six months and see if anything changed. It didn’t, and I tendered my resignation to our publisher, Stuart Richner, six weeks ago.

You deserve an editor whose heart is in the work, who’s hungry, who wants The Riverdale Press to be what it was when the Steins owned it.

That’s not me. Not anymore. I wanted to want those things, but, as we used to say about someone or something that’s had it; I’m shot.

And the last thing this paper needs is a retread in the editor’s chair.

The next editor of The Riverdale Press is ET Rodriguez. She is excited and driven to take the role, and will walk in the door with a mass of connections to, and experience reporting in, the greater Riverdale area. She is a Bronx native passionate about the people, culture and future of this borough, and it is my great pleasure to turn the paper over to her.

I think you will feel the same way.

ET will assume the editor’s chair here with Izania Gonzalez and Alaska St. Clair as reporters, and Gary Jean-Juste as photo editor. It’s been gratifying to watch these three young journalists grow in my time here, and I know those journeys will continue and deepen with a new editor in charge.

Personally, I wish Izania, Alaska and Gary every happiness.

Professionally, I hope I did right by them. 

Despite what it might sound like above, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to be a small part of The Riverdale Press’s legacy, and I’m thankful to Richner Communications for letting me come back and do this work one more time.

Community journalism is more vital to the future of the republic than ever, and it needs people like ET Rodriguez leading the fight to protect, preserve and enhance it as we move past another presidential election and beyond.

If the best thing about my having been Riverdale Press editor is serving as a bridge from what’s come before in the recent past and what can be in the near future, then it’s been my honor to have filled that role.

This is a special paper, and it covers a special area of the Bronx. Thank you for having me these past seven months.

Take care.

The author is the editor of The Riverdale Press.