After 44 years, I’m grateful, weary and wary

You can’t have a job like mine and expect everyone to like you. Running the editorial page is like calling balls and strikes behind home plate. The editorial board essentially delivers performance reviews on people in public and who likes being on the receiving end of that?

I learned to develop tough skin after my first front-page story at the Tampa Tribune 44 years ago. It said 90 percent of the overdue books at the University of South Florida library were checked out to faculty. The faculty senate responded with a motion to name USF’s new sewage treatment plant after me.

So imagine my surprise the other day when, after hearing that I am retiring at the end of this week, the Broward County Commission designated March 9 as “Rosemary O’Hara Appreciation Day” in Broward. Something like that just doesn’t happen to journalists, especially in today’s climate. Asked to call into the meeting, I got all choked up. As my late mother would have said, my community’s thanks made me “pop my buttons.”

It was especially meaningful that Commissioner Lamar Fisher sponsored the proclamation, given that we’d editorialized against the bond referendums he’d pushed as Pompano Beach mayor. With his gesture, Fisher demonstrated that people can still disagree agreeably and still respect one another.

I became a journalist during the Woodward-Bernstein era, when the mantra in newsrooms was to kick ass and take names. Along the way, I’ve been fortunate to witness historic moments and meet famous people. But I’ve always been driven by the desire to find the devil in the details and tell people what’s going on so that perhaps, if they wanted, they could make a difference.

“Pity the fool who came unprepared to her editorial board meetings,” my boss, Julie Anderson, wrote in announcing my retirement to the newsroom. “No one could out-research Rosemary, and it was a delight to see her hold the powerful accountable with her incisive questioning.”

Midway though my career, I became an editorial page editor not because I wanted to write and edit informed commentary, but because I appreciated the community forum reflected on the opinion pages. While I may be remembered for editorials on Broward Health, the Broward Sheriff ’s Office and Broward Schools — or the exhaustive endorsements we offered in hundreds of local elections over the years — I am equally proud of having created the South Florida 100 feature you see every Sunday, which elevates the voices of so many interesting people.

At 65, I leave the newspaper business knowing I’ve left it all on the field. And I look to the next generation to keep a watchful eye on government, stand up for our community and speak truth to power. But honestly, I’m worried.

Don’t get me wrong. My Sun Sentinel colleagues remain as committed as ever to telling people what they know, when they know it, and holding power to account. I’m also confident my boss will find a quality journalist to fill my seat and that the team I’ve proudly assembled will continue to richly inform and engage you.

However, a “vulture capitalist” hedge fund is positioned to buy our parent company, Tribune Publishing. It’s possible that a Baltimore hotel executive could still assemble financing for a counter offer, but our board of directors last week recommended that shareholders approve the lesser offer from Alden Global Capital, which the Washington Post’s media columnist calls “one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism.”

It’s no secret that newspapers have been cutting back for years to remain profitable. So while the Sun Sentinel remains Broward’s biggest local news source, we have about a fifth of the 350 journalists we once employed.

It’s believed Alden would cut even more. In an audio recording obtained by NPR, Chicago Tribune editor Colin McMahon said Alden expects profit margins of 20-percent plus, up from 10 to 13 percent today.

If you think what’s happening at newspapers doesn’t matter to you, you’re wrong. Bad things happen when no one’s looking and our democracy depends on an informed citizenry. And when it comes to watchdogging government, few people have the ability to replace fulltime professional reporters.

Also, if you think you get all the news you need on the internet or social media, ask yourself if you’re confident you know what forces are afoot right now that might affect your property value, your commute or your pocketbook.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had a couple years ago with Fort Lauderdale attorney Bill Scherer about Broward Health, then in the midst of great upheaval. He recalled a Sun Sentinel reporter named Sandy who once covered the public hospital district. District officials didn’t like her much because she kept looking under rocks for wrongdoing. I will never forget his lament that day: “Where’s Sandy?”

Looking at the trend lines for newspapers, you’d have to be in deep denial to not see the die is cast. Journalism needs a new business model. Philanthropy must step up. Facebook and Google must share the advertising dollars they siphon. Politicians must stop threatening to pull public notices (and their revenue) from newspapers. Readers must support local journalism, including start-ups and off-shoots, with subscriptions and donations. And corporate owners must keep subscription prices reasonable.

My younger self used to bristle whenever someone suggested that I was just “trying to sell newspapers.” My older self wants to sell you on newspapers and thank you for reading the Sun Sentinel, including the opinion pages.

My husband and I plan to spend our retirement years in Dunedin, a less-bustling community just north of St. Petersburg/Clearwater. It’s a charming waterfront town, a little like Delray Beach before it became South Beach for the over-50 crowd.

I leave a big piece of my heart in Fort Lauderdale. Tom and I found each other here. We lived life to its fullest here, attending Broadway shows, concerts and sporting events; taking walks in the park and airboat rides in the Everglades; spending days at the beach and dinners with family and friends; creating The Invading Sea media collaborative with my Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post counterparts, which we plan to continue; and meeting so many interesting people.

One of those people was Lin Wallace, who called herself my biggest fan. I met Lin when she was near death. I asked her how she reflected on life. After a long moment, she captured how I feel today.

“Really, I think, where did the time go?”

That’s the harsh cliche most of us workaholics must grapple with. That and “what will I do with myself when I retire?”

Professionally, I’m afraid I’m going to sit around and fret about the future of journalism and the health of our politics. Both are in decline and, frankly, I have no solutions to offer.

Personally, I’m simply going to relish the absence of deadlines and those angry voicemails from subscribers who want me to solve their delivery problems.