Temporarily can be a long time

By Richard L. Stein,
Co-publisher, 1978-2008, Editor, 2005-2008

Where did the time go? In November 1976 I told my parents - David and Celia Stein -I would come back to Riverdale from my upstate home and suspend my architectural practice just long enough to prepare The Riverdale Press for sale to a new owner. I would temporarily "mind the store" until the transfer was consummated. I thought it could take up to a year. That was a serious underestimation - it took 32 years.

Dave and Ceil had founded the newspaper more than twenty-six years before my return, and they had grown it into a successful business and a vital part of the community, but Dave had a serious heart condition.

With each offer from a potential buyer, my dad's condition seemed to worsen, but he brightened whenever the deal fell through. Finally, he got an offer he couldn't refuse. It was from Clay Felker, the founding editor of New York Magazine.

He knew I intended to leave when he took over, but he pressed me to listen to a presentation of his plans, ending each bullet point with "and I need you to make this work."

When I got home, I told my wife that Clay had certainly m ade a career at The Press sound attractive, "I know why he wants me to stay," I added, "but, if I do, why do I need him?"

Clay Felker was a world-class editor, but I knew we already had one right in the family. Once I made the decision to stick around, it wasn't that hard to get Buddy - Bernard L. Stein was his byline - to agree to join me.

Together we endured hardships and celebrated triumphs - from a firebombing to a Society of Professional Journalists First Amendment Award and a Pulitzer Prize. And we were privileged to work with extraordinary writers and photographers and cover extraordinary events in an extraordinary community.

I'm amused when I hear speakers at newspaper conventions tell their audiences that, to survive, newspapers must become more "interactive" with their communities. I laugh because, though the jargon may have changed, it's just what Dave Stein always preached. He taught me to be thrilled to see every child at a PS 81 assembly raise a hand when I asked who had seen his or her own name in the paper and to be proud to offer a forum where every opinion in the community could be aired.

We can now send e-mail blasts about breaking news as it happens. Increasingly, we are adding audio, video and slide shows to written stories and the technology has made it easier than ever for readers to share their feedback, but the core responsibility remains as it always was, to give people a tool with which to influence the issues that affect their lives.