August 15-21, 2002

city beat

Walker Lundy's memo re: Anne Gordon

After a long search and a lot of thought, I am pleased to announce today that Anne Gordon will be the new managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

I have found her passionate about journalism and its sacred trust with readers. She has enormous energy, creativity and a commitment to the journalistic excellence that fits The Inquirer as one of the top newspapers in the U.S. Like me, she recognizes that many journalists feel a calling to this profession, hoping that they can make a difference in people's lives. This is what I care about, and this is certainly what Anne cares about. She will help me ensure a climate in which people can do their best work, earn recognition for it, and trust and rely on their editors. As you know, I have carried out a thorough national search to fill this job. I spoke to quite a few candidates from a diverse pool of editors from papers large and small. (In case you wondered, the delay was not for a lack of interested candidates.) I'm convinced Anne is the best person for the job.

Initially, my instinct was to go outside for a managing editor and I spent a lot of the time trying to do that. To help change the paper while keeping the best of the historic Inquirer culture, I thought someone with a fresh view would be best. But as I looked at every outside candidate, I concluded virtually all of them lacked something in the critical combination of talents I thought the next managing editor needed. I often joked with candidates that the job was going to be tougher than mine; after all, it would have all the same pressures as mine, plus me to contend with.

As the months passed, I came to know the enormous talent already in this newsroom. I also became more encouraged at how many staffers were ready -- even eager -- for change. Something that impressed me from the start was the high quality of The Inquirer Feature sections. They are some of the strongest components of the paper and among the very best feature sections in the country. I knew a lot of change had occurred there since Anne's arrival. And I learned of her role in helping save the Sunday magazine. I knew that had been enormously controversial -- in the newsroom and among readers. But if Anne and others had not led the way and stuck to their guns, our Sunday magazine would have gone the way of so many other newspaper Sunday magazines. We wouldn't have one today.

After I had talked to each managing editor candidate at length, my thoughts kept returning to the prospect of offering the job to Anne. She was the only candidate who would bring an ideal mix of inside/outside experience. She already knew the Inquirer and I was impressed with her journalism, energy and dedication. Finally, both of us decided this was the right decision for The Inquirer, for Anne and for me. It fit.

At many papers, the features editor is strong in features but not as experienced in news. Some of you on the second floor and in the bureaus who don't know Anne well yet may have that concern. But that's not the case with her. Most of her newspaper experience has been on the news side of the paper. As the assistant managing editor of The Denver Post, she oversaw the night newsgathering and production, as well as the enterprise team and the Sunday review section. Before that, she was the business editor of The Post and a business editor at the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. After The Post, she became a senior news manager of the NBC-owned and operated television station in Denver. She also has edited a weekly newspaper, as well as two quarterly magazines in that loveliest of American communities, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

She took a year off from daily journalism to write a book about saints for Bantam Books, give birth to her son and to serve as communications director for the Colorado Democratic Party during Clinton's first campaign. For five years, she was the Sunday magazine editor at The Cleveland Plain Dealer until Rosey convinced her in April 1999 to become The Inquirer's Arts and Entertainment Editor. Most of you know the rest of that story. She has risen quickly to her position as Deputy Managing Editor. Anne received her B.A. from University of Denver in 1979. Most recently, she won an Eisenhower International Leadership Fellowship, allowing her to travel to Scandinavia to study international publishing issues, with an emphasis on electronic media. She has won numerous awards during her career both for her reporting as well as for the departments, TV station, and newspapers she has helped managed. She lives with her husband Phillip Berman, owner of an international yacht brokerage firm, and their 12-year old son Aaron.

We all have a busy, exciting time ahead of us. Please join me in congratulating Anne.

Walker