My heart broke over the weekend when I learned that Bruce Gill, an editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, passed away from complications from a brain aneurism. If you read the obits and columns about Bruce’s life, you find lots of references to young reporters who grew under his wing, his unmatched devotion to open government and the press’ role therein, his hard-charging drive for truth, his warm sense of humor, and his incredible sense of loyalty toward reporters who worked for him.
I knew all of that well. Bruce was my mentor. He was a college professor of mine who took a huge chance on me by getting me a job at the Milwaukee Sentinel while I was still in school. It was the best newspaper for which I ever worked, in large part because of Bruce. He helped me write my first Freedom of Information Law request and I thought of him hundreds of times afterward when I used open records laws to do my work. (I even called him to boast when I submitted a FOIL letter to the NYC Department of Education requesting copies of all the other FOI requests that they had received, along with the dates on which they were fulfilled. I told him I wanted to know if everyone was getting as screwed as I was by the city in terms of slow responses and a lack of accountability to the public.)
Once, when I was starting out as a general assignment reporter, Bruce asked me to check out a tip he had gotten. I called the PR flack for whatever agency it involved and reported back to him a short time later that “spokesman so-and-so said it isn’t true.” Case closed, I seemed to think.
His response was instant: “He’s lying to you. Now what are you going to do?”
I never worked harder for anyone in my life, mainly because he made you want to work hard. He delighted at breaking news stories, and thrived on making that extra call to push a story – even after deadline. He made you feel like you weren’t just nailing a story, you were protecting democracy. If you slowed down on a story, you somehow felt like you were allowing the entire Fourth Estate to fall down on the job.
I worked the night shift with Bruce for a while, and one of my favorite things in the world was kicking ass on a breaking news story and then getting an early morning phone call the next day from Bruce’s kitchen to my kitchen, celebrating the journalistic conquest. It was that kind of celebration of work product that made me want to do it over and over.
He loved competition, almost as much as he loved winning. There was some mention in the obits about how hard he worked to secure jobs for Sentinel reporters when the newspaper merged with the Milwaukee Journal in 1995. We were unionized and I only had a couple of years on the job. The contract technically called for “last hired, first fired.” I became a sort of posterchild for possible joblessness because my wife had just given birth to our first son and I was about to be unemployed. I was one of the people for whom Bruce went to bat, and I later heard stories that stunned me about how much of a crusade he undertook on my behalf.
That was what Bruce did. He got you to give your all for him, and in turn, he gave his all for you. He fought tenaciously in news meetings for his reporters’ stories. When politicians called him to complain about his reporters, he went to bat for his team.
His passing is so sad for me, because he is unquestionably a part of who I am today. I just adored the guy, and I don’t usually adore anybody.
The last time I saw him was a couple of years ago when I was in Milwaukee promoting my book. The next day, he sent me this email message:
It was great to see you and I wish we could have chatted longer. I couldn’t stay. Things are going well for us – Sue and I have four grandchildren now. Our daughter, Amy, is a teacher in Cedarburg, by the way. I couldn’t believe that you said your son was in third grade. Time does fly. I hope things are going well for you guys.
(By the way, perhaps you shouldn’t have been so nice to the teacher union guy. If he would have punched you, the ensuing news story would have sent book sales through the roof.)
In my mind, I could hear him chuckling at the idea. I’m going to miss you Bruce. Meet you on the golf course someday.