Editorial page editor steeped in Columbus
Barbara Carmen knows this city, this region and the people who live and work here like few others.
She was born in Columbus. She is a product of Columbus City Schools and Ohio State University. And she has worked in positions across the newsroom at her hometown newspaper during more than three decades.
And now Carmen, who has been an editorial writer for the past seven years, assumes a new position as interim Editorial Page Editor of The Dispatch. She takes on that role after the recent departure of longtime Editorial Page Editor Glenn Sheller.
The interim title is a reflection of the fact that Carmen, 56, plans to retire sometime in the first quarter of next year to spend more time with her husband, Mark Fisher, who retired from The Dispatch three years ago. So we will all benefit from her thoughtful insights and leadership during the time she is with us, and we also will use the coming months as an opportunity to seek a replacement.
Carmen came to The Dispatch in 1985, having worked for a short time after college in Washington, D.C., and then at The News Sun in Springfield, Ohio. She covered schools, Columbus City Hall and Franklin County government before becoming the Dispatch metro columnist and then an editorial writer.
Carmen, who has two brothers, was raised by a single mother after the death of Carmen’s father when she was 7. Her mother, Helen, got a job at what is now the Defense Supply Center Columbus on the East Side, and the hardships her family faced during those years were overshadowed by her mother’s love for them and her determination to raise
children who would be successful and contribute to society.
Her brothers became an orthodontist and an engineer. And Carmen is the communicator who enjoys nothing more than a thoughtful conversation that might lead to new ideas, new perspectives or action that might address a great need in society.
While in college, she worked as a sales clerk at Lazarus to help pay for her schooling. Now, she is the mother of a 22-year-old senior who is studying art history and Russian at Ohio State. In the past, she volunteered with the Girl Scouts, a theater group and at her daughter’s school.
I tell you all of these things about Carmen so that you know that when you read opinions on the Dispatch editorial and forum pages, that you can picture the person behind those words as someone who is invested in Columbus and has the best interests of this community and the people who live here.
“I care so much about this community,” she told me last week. “I’m not just doing a job. I take it personally when government does something that affects people negatively. I know how hard people work for their money and to build good lives here.
“For some, we are the last line of defense when it comes to holding government officials accountable,” Carmen said.
She said that she writes not for faceless readers, but for people she knows from childhood or meets on the street.
“I picture them as I’m writing, or even thinking about what topics to write about,” she said. “I ask myself whether they would be affected by a policy decision or vote, or whether they would be interested in reading about the topic.”
She also feels strongly, as do I, that our role on the Editorial pages is not to rant or preach. It is to start and carry on a conversation.
“I’m not at all upset if someone disagrees with our Editorial opinions,” she said. “It’s our opinion, and they might have a different or better opinion. In fact, we have letters to the editor so that readers have the opportunity to weigh in. These pages are meant to open a conversation, not shut it down.”
So please welcome Barbara Carmen to the Editorial Page Editor’s office, and join us in a robust conversation about important issues in government, business and society.