The News Tower is going to be just fine….

July 23rd, 2008 at 06:06pm Linda Grist Cunningham

The big news in the Rockford Register Star News Tower today was the retiring of President and Publisher Fritz Jacobi, the naming of Scott Bowers as publisher, and the promotion of Tom Lasley to general manager. I am still the editor.  (And to those who were rumoring or wishing that I would be gone in 60-90 days, nuts to you…)

Eight years ago, almost to the day, then-publisher Mary P. Stier told me she was headed to Des Moines and that “you will like your new publisher; the new publisher will be a better boss for you than I have been.” At the time, it was hard to accept that. MPS, as I called her, was for 10 years the best of bosses; our brains worked alike and we came to finish each other’s sentences.

Today, when I hustled back from Chicago after getting the call from Fritz, I told him MPS was right. He was a better boss for me. He made me learn and use skills I didn’t know I had, and he was a joy to be around. I’m going to miss Fritz. A lot. He made a difference in the News Tower and in this community. He did the right thing — always. Godspeed, boss. (Shameless I am: Will you invite me to the lake house now?)

But this business is like a monarchy. The king is dead; long live the king. So, along comes Scott Bowers, known to everyone in the News Tower simply as Bowers. He worked here for so long (two decades give or take a year) before going to Springfield as publisher, that we simply assumed he was the prince-in-waiting. Bowers is one of the few people I routinely said I’d be happy working for. Now I can. I give him this promise: I have always trusted you completely. I will do so now.

And, to Tom Lasley, who also has been at the RRS almost as long as I have (darn near two decades, folks), this promise: You’ve got this amazing knack for bringing over-sized egos to the table and getting them to play nice for the good of the group. Keep doing that; we’re going to be one heckuva team.

Change, goes the cliche, is always a pain. Nothing is ever as sweet as its promise, and I’m not an idiot. We face a long hard journey over the next five years, but it’s a journey we will make successfully. As I have told my staff over the past week: It’s not going to get better for a long time, and when it does, better will look nothing like today. I love this job. I believe in what we do. I believe in you. Join me on the journey.

So, for those of you whose lives are touched by the News Tower and what we do down here (and that’s 80 percent of market), I extend the same invitation: Join me on the journey. It’s going to be a blast.

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