An anniversary tribute to ‘The Boss’

Today, the 26th anniversary of the death of John S. Knight and the day before Father’s Day, seems an appropriate time to pay tribute to the man.

We borrow from the words of Abe Zaidan whose book, Portraits of Power, was just published. When Zaidan received the John S. Knight award for excellence from the Society of Professional Journalists, here’s how he described “The Boss” :

“We should pause for a few moments to consider an extraordinary figure in journalistic history. Jack Knight may very well be the last newspaper publisher – no, the last newspaperman – who could be described in terms of greatness.

“Certainly, he has no peers today. And for that, the business is becoming a scaled-down version of what it might have been with people of Mr. Knight’s vision still around.

“Here was a man who cared enough about the printed word to circle a particular word or thought in a political column and mail it back to Akron from his Miami winter headquarters.

“One who made it a point each election day to call in the early turnout at his precinct – he always loved reporting – and waited for the later editions to arrive on his desk to see whether he was correctly, if anonymously, quoted.

“One who literally locked himself in his office so as to devote his full energies to his weekly Editor’s Notebook –and yet sought the opinion of a subordinate on whether the column achieved the tone that he has so assiduously sought.

“His was a commitment to language and public dialogue that one finds so rarely today in the rush to titillate the anonymous reader.

“He was impatient with editors who flew off to newspaper conventions, arguing there was nothing to be gained in reinforcing the ingrained ideas that accompanied an editor to the meeting in the first place.

“He lectured us more than once over the years on why the size of the type should be increased to make reading it easier, and why there was a time and place for everything in the hometown paper – and that means a greater injection of humor to offset the preponderance of serious news coverage. . . this from a man whose own attention seldom strayed from the weighty issues of the day.

“In short, he had an insatiable appetite for everything that was going on, particularly in his beloved Akron.”

Watch tomorrow for a Father’s Day Editor’s Notebook from The Boss.