Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Tom Murray, old-school editor with love of the future, dies
Invariably when Tom Murray, the editor of the Daily Local News, ended a telephone conversation with one of his colleagues about stories they were working on or projects they were overseeing, he would sign off with the brisk but sincere offer, “Call me if you need me.”
Sadly, those calls — made at a time when “fake news” and “alternative facts” bedevil the journalism profession and make wisdom that comes from more than two decades of experience in the news business more important than ever — will now forever go unanswered.
Murray, the career newspaperman who viewed himself as a resource for the people he worked with as much as he saw newspapers themselves as a resource for the communities they covered, died Satur-
day. He was 54.
He suffered a heart attack while he was dining with his fiancée, Terry Hardin, with whom he shared a home in Eddystone, she confirmed Monday. They were discussing plans to surprise their families with news of their upcoming wedding on Valentine’s Day, she said.
“He loved his job, and he was always putting his family and others first,” said Hardin. “All he cared about was taking care of other people.”
That side of Murray’s personality shone through in the way he dealt with reporters, photographers, other editors, and colleagues on the multiple newspapers and media outlets he worked at over the years. It showed in his passion for helping people get better at their craft, in his own strong work ethic and in his sense of humor and humanity.
He was a hard-core newspaperman who loved a good lede paragraph, a clever headline, and an action-packed photo. He believed the society page was as important in the Main Line papers he worked for as the sports page was to the Gloucester, N.J., Daily Times, where he held the post of sports editor for nine years, because he believed a newspaper at its best reflects its readers.
More than that, however, Murray stayed true to the ideals of old-school print newsmen (and women), loving the traditions and storytelling while at the same time embracing and chasing the future with enthusiasm. He began reporting when electronic journalism was in its infancy, but became so involved in the new digital age that one of his happiest moments came when a video screen showing the real-time activity of the Daily Local News’ website was installed in the newsroom.
“At their heart, newspapers help tell the story of a town, a county, a nation,” said Ed Condra, senior publisher of Digital First Media’s Suburban Philadelphia Cluster, the owner of the Daily Local News. “Tom Murray was dedicated to helping those stories get told, and finding new ways to help tell them. “Tom was an ‘old-school’ newspaperman, a veteran of an era when print newspapers were a respected and honored form of communication,” Condra said. “But as proud as he was of his decades of experience, Tom was not one to sit back and revel in by-gone days of glory. He was not shy about confronting modern reporting, be it through innovative websites, social media outreach, or offering the paper’s voice to non-traditional storytellers. He valued the future and wanted so much to be a part of it.”
Added Condra, “Tom Murray will be missed not simply because of how friendly and hard working he was, but because he was actively helping all of us move into the 21st century.”
According to his son, Ian Murray of Philadelphia, Tom Murray was born into a large Irish family and raised in Folcroft, Delaware County, the youngest of five sons of Elsie Murray of Darby and the late Harry F. Murray. He graduated from St. James High School in Chester in 1980, and attended Penn State’s Delaware County campus before graduating from Temple University with a degree in mass communications and journalism in 1985.
He began working as an intern for a newspaper on Long Beach Island in New Jersey, and then took a post as a news and sports reporter for the daily paper in Gloucester. In 1999 he switched to the Burlington County Times, where he worked in sports and later moved up to night news editor.
He became managing editor at Main Line Life in 2005, and then took over as editor of Main Line Media News when Main Line Life merged with two other weekly papers, the Main Line Times and the Suburban and Wayne Times. He worked as a regional editor for the online media platform Patch, a creation of AOL that began in 2011. After a sojourn into a more advertising-centered operation in King of Prussia, Hibu, he returned to print journalism in 2015, at first working in the production hub and then later being named content manager for Digital First Media, in March of last year, overseeing the Main Line papers and the Daily Local News.
“It was his entire life,” said Ian Murray, looking back over his father’s career. “He did a little bit of everything. He was old school” — watching black and white movies of newspaper reporters with their cigarettes hanging out of their mouths banging out stories on manual typewriters — “and wanted to be the guy who sat at the golf tournament and wrote the story right on the spot. He loved that stuff.”
But Ian Murray also said his father had recognized for some time that his industry was being changed by technology and the internet. Unlike others of his generation, he did not reject those changes.
“He didn’t fight it,” Ian Murray said. “He loved it. I remember him coming home one day and asking me to show him Twitter, how to do it. He wasn’t afraid of that. He knew it was transforming the business into something.”
Pete Bannan, a staff photographer for the Daily Local News who met Murray when he came to the Main Line Media News operation, agreed, saying he was “super pro-active about being on the web. He knew the business inside and out, and knew how to utilize those new tools.”
One way that occurred was Murray’s support for Bannan’s interest in going through old editions of the Daily Local News to revisit stories and photos from the past — but only on the paper’s website, www.dailylocal.com. “If I had an interest in something, he would be very happy to let me explore it,” Bannan said.
He also gave opportunities to non-traditional “reporters” such as former Chester County commissioner and state Sen. Earl M. Baker, who wrote stories about the GOP Convention in Cleveland, and most recently Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. Murray also tried various ways to get noticed by younger readers, including giving print space to a high school junior to relate how the Trump presidency was affecting her peers.
“Right up until the day he died, Tom was working at the profession he loved,” said Baker on Monday after hearing the news of Murray’s death. “He encouraged me, as a ‘non-traditional’ reporter to write first-person accounts of the Cleveland Convention, the Electoral College and most recently the inaugural. As a former public figure, I came to have great respect for the ‘real’ reporters who every day face deadlines and the challenge of writing, and I enjoyed the challenge.” Baker said he last emailed Murray to thank him on Saturday, before Murray’s death.
“People wanted to work for him,” said Kaitlyn Foti, a staff writer for Digital First Media in Montgomery County. “He was more than a boss. He was a mentor, a leader, a friend, and would always put himself on the line for his employees. Having that kind of backup made us all better reporters.”
In addition to his mother and son Ian, Murray is survived by sons Anthony and Michael; a granddaughter, Braelyn; other family members; and his fiancée, Hardin. He was predeceased by his wife, Diane.
Funeral arrangements are pending.