On a fall afternoon in 1981, I ventured for the first time into Schenectady, made my way through newsroom canyons formed by the tallest, least stable piles of paper I had ever seen, and interviewed for a reporter’s position with managing editor Jack Hume. I left with an offer to become The Schenectady Gazette’s Scotia-Glenville reporter and soon returned to squeeze into a newsroom filled with history and character.

This was no standardized, chain-owned, cubicle work space. Here was an independent, family-owned newsroom with wooden paneling and desks buried in paper towers.

Some of the furnishings could be described as worn; so could some of the occupants, maybe. But this was not a museum. The connections with the past lived on but so did a drive to improve, to compete, to publish papers that were better than the others in the area and better than what we had done before.

My friend R.D. Heldenfels liked to tell people how a competitor described going up against the Gazette news staff as being like facing a bunch of “Khomeini warriors.”

As a newcomer to the paper, I was struck not only by the drive of many of its reporters, but by the newspaper’s standing in the community. Covering government meetings, it wasn’t unusual to see people in the audience brandishing Gazette clippings and grilling officials on the topic in the story. The paper printed volumes of information each day, keeping its print unusually small to allow for ever more information. And readers found it, followed it and demanded that we do it all over again each day.

Period of advancement

In the years since, I’m sure we have been as imperfect and fallible as any other company and any other generation of journalists. But looking back, I see that time in the early 1980s as the beginning of a remarkable period of advances: new technology; new design; new publications; and a drive to keep raising the bar for the quality of our work.

We are now in a modern building with more comfortable, if less idiosyncratic, furnishings. The piles are less threatening, but neatness is not in the DNA of journalists so there’s still enough clutter for the newsroom to feel like a newsroom.

And the people who make up the staff of The Gazette are still the reason that it’s a special place.

They aren’t all the same individuals I started work with. We lost some of those to larger (though not necessarily better) papers. Others passed away, leaving empty places in the office but lasting contributions to our spirit. Others moved on, carried by the currents of their lives or of the newspaper business.

In my time, we have increased staff and, in recent years, cut back as the business climate has changed. The cutbacks have been especially difficult but it’s been inspiring to see how my co-workers have responded. They are as determined as ever to put out a paper they can be proud of, working hard at their own responsibilities then pitching in to help others keep up.

Moving on

It has probably always been true of newsrooms that people come and go. I have been here longer than most, perhaps, but now it’s time for me to move on.

This week I’m saying goodbye to the Gazette and its readers. In a few weeks, I will be saying goodbye to Schenectady and moving to the mountains to become publisher of The Adirondack Explorer.

But while change may be in the nature of a newspaper, so is constancy. Jack Hume and his family run a newspaper that has been in their family since 1894. It has seen many people and many changes. Yet it continues to publish every day with the same commitment to the staff and the community.

I have been lucky to have a chance to contribute to this effort for what’s been a long time for me but a short period for the newspaper. I will miss the people of the Gazette but I’m confident that it is in good hands and many good things are ahead for the paper and the community.

Good bye.

Gazette Managing Editor Tom Woodman’s monthly Editor’s Notes column concludes today.