Melanie Sill was honest, smart, hard working, and ambitious for herself and for others. She had excellent news judgment, too.
She was the investigation editor at The News & Observer and although she had never done any investigative work herself, she was proof that you don’t have to hang somebody to know how to build a gallows. I was an investigative reporter at The N&O and for years she and I made music together. In the mid-90’s Melanie; Joby Warrick, my reporting partner; and I teamed up to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Do you sense a “however” coming?
Well, here it is: When Melanie became executive editor of The N&O and, at my request, made me editor of the North Carolina Desk, I spent the most miserable 18 months of my newspaper life working for her. She was, in a word, overbearing.
In the middle of those dark days, Melanie gave a most wonderful gift to me and other graduates of an in-house school for editors: a piece of paper, a pass that entitled each of us to one day free of criticism.
She may have meant it as a joke but it was no joke to me. I put my pass in my wallet to save for one of those perfectly horrible days that came along just about every week.
I didn’t use it right away. I endured some bad days, but no horrible days, and I had no intention of using my pass on a run-of-the-mill bad day.
At last, my patience was rewarded.
In theory, three editors and 18 reporters worked for me. In reality, however, the North Carolina desk was set up so that I had no control over two of the editors and their reporters. I was just there to take the heat when they failed to produce.
On the day I decided to use my pass the 21 people for whom I was responsible had no stories to pitch for the front page. That was a capital offense and I knew Melanie would be extremely unhappy. I got my pass ready.
She was sitting right beside me at the 10:30 editors’ meeting when I reported that the North Carolina Desk didn’t have any stories good enough to put on 1A the next day. She swiveled in her chair and was about to unload when I held up her gift and said, “Melanie, I’m going to use my free pass today.”
She swallowed all that venom without uttering a single word and turn back around.
What a blessing! Hallelujah! HALLELUJAH!
But when the meeting ended a few minutes later, Melanie swiveled back around.
“I want to talk to you,” she said, sternly.
“Melanie,” I said, “I used my free pass.”
And she said, “It’s not good for all day.”
Postscript: Sill, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UNC, has held a series of top executive positions, at The N&O; The Sacramento Bee, McClatchy’s flagship paper; and at Southern California Public Radio. More recently she has been a journalism and organizational consultant and independent editor. Next semester she will teach journalism at Davidson College.
Coming Friday: Deal Me Out
