{"id":123,"date":"2022-01-04T16:32:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T16:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2022-03-07T17:06:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T17:06:00","slug":"jan-4-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/04\/jan-4-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Jan. 4, 2022:
Forty years ago Jan. 4, I walked into my first newsroom, excited about being a reporter, apprehensive, with no experience but more than my share of determination.<\/p>

I didn\u2019t know a thing about how a newsroom worked. I couldn\u2019t even compose on a typewriter. I wrote my stories by hand, then typed them in, just like I\u2019d done with my English papers in college.<\/p>

I was shy. My writing was clear but nothing special. (She asks herself: how did she ever get a job?)<\/p>

But being a reporter forced me to ask lots of questions, and reading fine writing eventually taught me better ways to approach assignments, find details and tell stories.<\/p>

I knew in the first few months \u2014 after I\u2019d interviewed farmers about a new brand of cattle and written about the city\u2019s rescue of a duck tangled in a six-pack ring \u2014 that I had stumbled upon the world\u2019s greatest job.<\/p>

Forty years later and at my seventh newspaper, I still feel that way. But it\u2019s time for someone else to take the wheel at The Island Packet in South Carolina\u2019s Lowcountry, where I\u2019ve been senior editor for 2 1\/2 years.<\/p>

I gave notice a few weeks ago, and told my staff today, that I\u2019m retiring Jan. 31.<\/p>

I am so thankful for the friends and colleagues who have taught me, made me laugh and enriched my life, including the editors who hired me, pushed me, reined me in when my prose got ridiculous and offered new opportunities to grow. I wanted to list you all, but tagging 200 or so folks seemed to border on a chain letter or spam or something worse.<\/p>

I\u2019ll probably have more to say later about those memories and those good people, but I\u2019m still processing, still figuring out what retirement looks like.<\/p>

I know I will be seeing my family more than I have in recent years. I know John and Sammy and I are road-tripping to Washington state again, this time by way of the national parks we missed on the last trip.<\/p>

Despite the dwindling use of the printing press, and the predicted demise of newspapers, I still have great faith in local journalism. I see my staff \u2014 most of them 25 or younger \u2014 interviewing experts and elected officials, studying town budgets, poring over planning documents, attending court hearings, listening to readers\u2019 complaints and answering their questions. They are doing their level best to keep our community informed.<\/p>

They are smart and passionate and give me hope for our future. Invest in them and those like them by buying a digital subscription to your local paper.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jan. 4, 2022: Forty years ago Jan. 4, I walked into my first newsroom, excited about being a reporter, apprehensive, with no experience but more than my share of determination. I didn\u2019t know a thing about how a newsroom worked. I couldn\u2019t even compose on a typewriter. I wrote my stories by hand, then typed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candyhatcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}