A -30- on my newspaper career

I'm about to put a -30- on my career as a newspaper man.

The number 30, sandwiched between two dashes, indicates the end of a newspaper story. And my story in newspapers is coming to an end after 33 years, a couple of more if you count the time I spent working for the student newspaper at the University of New Hampshire in the early 1970s.

The -30- isn't around anymore. It's an old editing mark that told typesetters who set copy with lead type that the story was done. The -30- disappeared as lead type and typesetters disappeared, and as writing stories on manual typewriters with cheap copy paper was replaced by computers and blinking cursors.

I freely admit it: I'm a dinosaur, part of a profession that is desperately trying to evolve or face extinction.

For more than 30 years, that's who I've been -- a newspaper man. I was the guy at the newspaper who wrote the stories. Then I was the guy at the newspaper who assigned and edited the stories. Then I was the guy who was editor of the newspaper. Then I was the guy who was in charge of day-to-day newspaper operations. All I've ever been is a newspaper man.

I graduated in May 1975 from the University of New Hampshire and by June I was working for the York County Coast Star. I was hired as a summer fill-in at the weekly that circulated throughout southern Maine. I didn't leave until two falls, two winters, two springs and two summers later. Then it was on to the Peabody Times in Peabody, Mass., part of the Essex County Newspaper group. It was a big deal then to jump from being a weekly reporter to working on a daily newspaper.

I became the city editor in Peabody, then moved over to a sister paper in Beverly, Mass., where I became a metro editor and ultimately editor. I was new media director for the ECN group, before heading north to New Hampshire to help Seacoast Newspapers with the purchase and consolidation of the Portsmouth Herald about 10 years ago as director of operations. It’s where I've remained ... until today.

Today (Friday, June 6) is my last day as a newspaper man, and like newspapers themselves I'm faced with the challenge of re-inventing myself as someone else, using the core of what I know and my experience to morph into something different.

A lot has changed to those papers: Ironically, the Star became a part of Seacoast Newspapers in 2001. The Peabody Times and Beverly Times went away, merged into the Salem News. Essex County Newspapers disappeared as a group, merged into one sale then another. Seacoast Newspapers became Seacoast Media Group as we needed a name that was more reflective of a business that had expanded beyond newspapers to the internet.

My opportunity here could be called a retirement, but the word retire denotes the kind of behavior that I'm not ready or willing to accept, either financially or emotionally. For a long time, I've gotten up each morning to dress for a day at the paper, and all the excitement and decision making that it might bring.

It's a strange feeling to know that come Monday, I won't wake up to that. I can best describe as teetering between elation and terror. I've never not had a newspaper job, and that's the scary part. But I'm tremendously excited to have the time to figure out what's next.

I'm one of a growing legion of newspaper men and women who are getting out, either on our own accord or someone else's. Newspapers in the last couple of years have shed thousands of positions in a frantic effort to save money as the industry seeks to save money as it reinvents itself from a dominant media that relied on printing to a dominant media that relies on technology.

This is my last column for the newspaper but not online. I still have a lot to say. You haven't heard the last from me yet. We dinosaurs can still make a lot of noise.