It was with deep regret that I read of Frank Rich’s departure from the Op Ed page of the New York Times. Its hard to imagine who will fill the center of that Sunday page. Perhaps it will be more than one columnist.
I think I speak for many bloggers when I say I am always waiting for the phone to ring with the New York Times to be on the line asking me to join the paper. Its not an ego thing and its not that I think I am a great writer.
Its because I have been connected to the paper since college when I took journalism classes at Stony Brook University studying under the consummate Times man Irv Molotsky.
He trained us to scrutinize the Times looking for errors in the paper in the way of typos and reporting. Contrary to popular belief the Times is not perfect. The journalists there are the best and brightest but still human.
Molotsky had such an impact on me that I was moved to track him down 25 years later to tell him I was an author and getting ready to rejoin the Democratic party while launching a letter writing campaign in the Times attacking Bush over the Iraq War.
Molotsky was very nice to me as we exchanged emails even inviting me to look him up in Paris where he lived half the year or in Washington where he lived the other half.
Those journalism classes were inspirational driving me years later to join Room Eight, launch a radio show and write a column for Gannett’s Poughkeepsie Journal.
It doesn’t stop there. I have big journalism plans for the future and my roots go back before the Times to when I was a news boy for Newsday and a teenager selling Daily News subscriptions door to door. The craft is in my blood and to the end of my days I will be waiting for that call.