Tom Mashberg’s e-mail about his Boston Herald departure
From: mashberg@rcn.com
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:53 PM
To:
Subject: my news
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Those In-Between:
Please forgive this poor excuse for spam. I’ll do my best to send along a few personal words in coming days, and respond to any inquiries. I hope you are well.
I’m leaving my longtime job as an investigative editor and Sunday Editor at the Boston Herald, effective Aug. 20. (I gave two weeks’ notice on Aug. 6.) I’m moving on to new opportunities, including a book about art theft I have contracted with the good people at Palgrave Macmillan (with a cowriter), and some long-term investigative reporting projects. I’ve spent 19 years at the Herald over two stints (or “bits,” as we call them) and count myself lucky to have been there when the newspaper business was steeped in ink and pulp and smoke and liquor, and papers were truly warm off the presses.
My employer is treating me with great class and kindness as I exit, and I move on with love and good will in my heart. Any departure is bittersweet, but I’m happy to know that I will always be treated as a member of the Herald’s extended family. Many of you understandably have no sense of the paper. It’s a weirdly magical place, an old factory building filled with the grime of decades that has survived the great newspaper purges of recent years, gives Boston a crucial second voice and routinely scoops the Boston Globe. (To my Globe friends: Yes, you beat us too.)
Naturally, I’m anxious about the future, given our economic times. I hope some of you reading this will see a use for a writer, reporter, investigative editor and Sunday editor with my skills and experience. My top satisfaction in recent years, beyond putting out a good Sunday paper, has been spotting and training talented young newspeople and watching their careers thrive. A good newspaper is all about teamwork, and there’s no greater enjoyment than seeing your team come through time and again in the clutch.
For those of you who have come to rely on me for access and entrée to the Herald and its pages, please continue to reach out. I plan to be an ongoing source of story ideas and tips. It won’t be the same, but I will do everything I can.
I will remain available at my old cell phone number, and via email at [two addresses]. I plan a Web site but assure you I will not trouble you with blog entries or Facebook requests, unless it becomes utterly necessary. As for Twitter, no f-ing way.
Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you. I have many good contacts, all of you foremost among them. Please pass the word.
Warm Regards,
Tom Mashberg
