The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Peg Gibbons: Old-school journalist will be missed
Give me a break! Margaret (Peg) Gibbons died last week and few of us saw it coming. Many of us thought it would never happen. This type of thing doesn’t happen to The Bureau.
To understand The Bureau would have required reading The Times Herald, the Doylestown newspaper and Montgomery Publishing products for, oh, about the last 40 years. If it happened in the Montgomery County Court House – government, politics, criminal court – it happened on The Bureau’s watch. Which is to say, just about nothing got past her.
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the trust of work-a-day bureaucrats, lying low and leading high were just some of the trademarks of a reporter who without exaggeration has more bylines over stories coming out of Montgomery County than anyone ever. It’s that simple.
Whether it was Court House Hill, the scathing, must-read weekly op-ed piece, a trial with international interest like say, Bill Cosby, or some God forsaken county planning commission meeting on a dreadful Tuesday afternoon, Gibbons was armed and ready. Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? Now you’re starting to get it.
Her colleagues were not immune to the battering ram. I can hear her now. “Oh, gawd! They got you to write this? Give me a break! Couldn’t they find a real journalist?”
That was Gibbons being Gibbons, but that’s just a slice of the story. Long hours, grilled cheese sandwiches, fancy sports cars and, of course, her Penn State Nittany Lions were also staples for The Bureau. She had a soft spot. She would hate to read that, but it’s true. Plenty of words accurately portray Gibbons – aggressive, abrasive, relentless and many more. But there also is caring, thoughtful and kind. A line of people will raise their hand in objection to that statement – Gibbons included – but it’s true. Friends were friends for life, sometimes in between stretches of grudge and stubbornness, but ultimately she was a very thoughtful person who cared about people. I can get away with saying that, now that she’s gone.
The soft side will not be the overriding memory for the largest group of people. Peg Gibbons caused elected and appointed officials to quake in their boots when they knew she was in the press gallery, which she always was.
Digital First Media reporter Carl Hessler Jr. was one of the reporters who shared space with Gibbons. And he too appreciated her professionalism, knowledge as well her engaging personality.
“As a fledgling court reporter arriving at the courthouse two decades ago, I watched Peg closely and learned a lot from her about the county political landscape. She was a walking encyclopedia when it came to Montgomery County and its movers and shakers. She seemed to know everything about everybody and had a knack for asking the right questions and pressing public officials for answers. She was the first in the press room each day and the last to leave. I was in awe of her so many times throughout the years. She was a mentor and I enjoyed every working day that I spent with her. She had a wicked sense of humor at times, a side of her many people did not see. I was lucky. I will miss her.”
A former colleague said to me the other day that a memorial for Gibbons will be more like a mourning of the passing of “our era.” That gives too much credit to the rest of us. What my former colleague meant was a time when news people created the kind of value that mattered to large groups of people. When wrong was exposed and followed through to the end, good, bad or indifferent, or the smallest turn of the screw could be important enough to really matter. When one of her two trips per day to the county clerk’s office could turn up a pile of nothing or include an important legal filing – maybe one an attorney was hoping would be lost in the shuffle – that would turn a really big story on its head.
So many of us learned from Peg Gibbons. That’s one accolade she really could not deflect.
I’m grateful to have stopped in to the courthouse last year. The purpose of the visit was not a long overdue reunion with Gibbons, although it was certainly on the docket. I was warmly greeted with a classic Gibbons eyeroll. We had spent five years together covering the courthouse the mid-1980s. She was The Bureau. I was the other guy. Here she was 30 years later still doing the same stuff, wreaking havoc, creating headaches and embroiled in whatever trouble found its way to her.
Something was off. The multi-room press office at the courthouse has always provided comfortable work space to what once was a bustling news haven. Up front, near the entrance, was the choice position, the long-held Times Herald desk that enabled The Bureau to see all the comings-and-goings to and from the busy lower level parking garage. It was a magnet for news tips and The Bureau’s nest was the best seat in the house.
On this visit, The Bureau was not occupying her place on the throne. Instead, she was in the allthe-way-back office, a full 20 steps from her royal perch. “Gibbons, what are you doing back here?” I asked. As she lifted her head in the best glowering Gibbons, I’d realized I had stepped on a third rail. Turns out, Gibbons had left the Norristown newspaper to join one of her longtime friends, the editor in Doylestown. She was switching jobs, but not changing a thing – same beat, same work, same desk. Uh, until an editor decided, no she would need to move back to the traditional Doylestown desk. Gibbons geared up for World War III, tested and battle-ready. She implored her longtime friend/ editor to stand and fight this noble scrum. Most good editors know when to fight and when to take a pass. So Gibbons took the long walk down to the new work space. It’s unknown if the “winning” editor had any idea of the magnitude of this conflict.
Still, it wasn’t the worst she would confront toward the end of a legendary career in journalism. Like too many of us, Gibbons last year learned that the latest ownership team at her newspaper was eliminating her job.
Another friend messaged last week that she was afraid of this outcome. “I just knew this is how it would go,” the friend said. “As soon as there was no more work.”
I don’t know how Gibbons reacted to news of losing her job, but I’m hoping she trotted out the incredulous statement she used hundreds of times in Court House Hill while describing some wrong that needed to be made right.
Give me a break! Editor’s Note: A memorial service will be held Saturday, April 7, at Huff & Lakjer Funeral Home, 701 Derstine Ave., Lansdale. Joseph P. Owens is a journalist in the Philadelphia area. He was the sports editor and then managing editor at The Times Herald. Reach him at jpomedia1@gmail.com. Cheryl Kehoe Rodgers, Digital First Media content editor, also contributed story.