Dear Subscriber,
One day in early August 2011, I was called to the office of Dan Gaydou, publisher of The Grand Rapids Press and the overseer of eight company newspapers in Michigan.
Outside, it was a perfectly calm summer day. But inside that office, our world was turning upside down.
“We’re launching a new company in Michigan,” Dan said. “We’d like you to lead the content operation.”
My mind struggled to comprehend each sentence that came after that: Our owners are merging their traditional newspapers with their internet companies. They plan to do it at all their properties across the country. New business model, new offices, new org chart, new sales strategies and new products.
Michigan is going first, Dan said, and we launch in six months.
This was a test on every level. The enormous logistical challenges overshadowed something of even deeper import: All that newspapers had ever been and all they had ever meant – to leaders like Dan, to our employees, to our readers and to our communities – was being launched on an uncertain journey of reinvention.
Many leaders across our industry were not up to the challenges of this sea change. Many got swept away, many just walked away.
But this is when Dan Gaydou stood the tallest. He was named president of this new company, which had to innovate and compete in the chaotic and cut-throat arena of digital information, sales and marketing. All while preserving the journalistic principles at the soul of our company.
I don’t think it’s any accident that our owners chose to launch their bold new model in a market led by a person of Dan’s experience, vision and principles. We all felt the loss and sadness of what once was, but he would not let us dwell on that.
In meeting after meeting with our employees across Michigan that winter, leading up to our launch, Dan would say “I need every one of you to find your own voice about what we’re building, and why it matters.” It was clear, as those meetings went on, that Dan was finding his voice, as well.
Before my new job, I had been executive editor of our papers in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City. Dan had overseen those papers, but I’d never worked with him directly on a day-to-day basis.
Now, we were thrown into the fire together. Tough decisions had to be made, some assumptions didn’t pan out, and we were running 100 mph. Dan and I didn’t always see eye to eye, and we had some blunt discussions about this or that business decision.
But he never wavered in his support of independent and aggressive journalism. He questioned us in ways that made us better, but he never derailed us. Dan is a steadfast champion of the First Amendment, and he set the tone for what matters from the very top of this company.
When I reference “Reader #1” to my employees, they all know who I’m talking about. Dan Gaydou is watching, and he has high expectations for us to fulfill our responsibilities as journalists, for how we serve our communities, and for the products we create for our customers.
Now, he is transitioning out of his role as the regional president overseeing MLive Media Group into a senior adviser role for our parent company, Advance Local. MLive employees, community leaders, family and friends gathered this week to celebrate the accomplishments and impact Dan had on our business and our communities.
In a different world, Dan would have been lauded solely as a legendary newspaperman, the archetypical publisher, perfectly cast to lead a powerful institution to steady levels of growth. In fact, that was the story of most of Dan’s career.
But we can’t choose our times, we can only dictate how we respond to them. The adversity served up by this last chapter made his final story all the more compelling, and meaningful.
We’re still here; we will remain here, and we have a voice that echoes back hundreds of years. Dan Gaydou kept that voice alive, and to me, that will be his enduring legacy.
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Sincerely,
John Hiner
Vice President of Content for MLive Media Group
Share your thoughts with him at editor@mlive.com |
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