John Diaz: A tribute to a storied editor
Anyone who has ever been through a labor strike knows the acrimony and distrust it can engender. Workers lose paychecks. Managers lose respect. Colleagues become enemies. The transition back to normalcy can turn into months, years — if it’s not forever elusive.
It takes an enormously secure, fearless and decent person to see through the battle lines.
In the aftermath of the San Francisco newspaper strike of 1994, it took a Bill German to rebuild that bridge of goodwill.
To their credit, all of The Chronicle’s top editors waited at the front door of 901 Mission St. to greet the returning rank-and-file journalists, of which I was one, at the end of that 12-day strike. Each made a good-faith, albeit strained, effort to begin the fence-mending. The editors shook our hands. They exchanged pleasantries.
And then there was Bill German, exhibiting his grace and unabashed allegiance to truth, journalism and the people who produced it.
As the staff gathered in the newsroom, tensions and awkwardness at peak levels, German acknowledged that management’s clumsy attempt at a strike paper (thin stories under comical pseudonyms) was no match for the workers’ enterprising online — yes, this was 1994, but online — alternative, the Free Press. You outdid
us, German told the returning workers.
“You are The Chronicle,” he told the troops.
That episode said so much about the Bill German I got to know much better when he tapped me to become editorial page editor two years later. He fiercely defended the people who worked for him against powers inside and outside the organization. Yet he was never one to administer false praise. At the occasional times when he would say something was “very good,” I knew we had one of our prime contest entries for the year. He relished risk in the advancement of bolder, better journalism.
The only admonition he ever gave me when I assumed the reins of the newspaper’s editorial page was: “There’s one thing I never want to see in an editorial ... and that’s the phrase, ‘On the other hand.’ ”
Take a stand. Punctuate it. Make a difference.
It probably seems odd to reveal that I never really knew much about Bill German’s political ideology. It says a lot about his respect for the editorial-board process that he was determined to have its judgment expressed and supported, even in the days when Republican shareholders of a family-owned newspaper were determined to have their view reflected in political endorsements. German was instrumental in bringing the first presidential endorsement on my watch, President Bill Clinton over Bob Dole, to the finish line in 1996. It was the first Democratic presidential endorsement since 1964, and a huge turning point for an editorial page that for too long had allowed its pursuit of just causes — the environment, peace, social justice, equality — to pause for seemingly incongruous endorsements at election time.
Bill German seemed so much the quintessential newspaper editor that it was hard to imagine that he ever would retire. He was the best copy editor I’ve ever seen — no page proof that ever reached his desk was without improvement from his reading. He loved great stories, the consequential and the unorthodox. He had total trust in his instincts, in news judgment and in hiring and promotion, and for that I am eternally grateful.
He finally did retire, in 2002, but never ceased being a critic and an inspiration for the newspaper he left behind. He remained on The Chron- icle’s computer system until his death last week at age 95, and would offer me wise feedback and advice. He never stopped caring and never stopped editing. For many, many years, Bill German
was The Chronicle.