By Fred Fiske

Early on in my 32 years in editorial writing, I became a True Believer. I remain convinced that communities benefit from, even need, the provocations of a nosey yet disinterested press advocate.

Because I am such an advocate for the editorial voice in daily journalism, it was a pleasure and an honor to serve as NCEW president, and to sit on Pulitzer juries judging columns and cartoons (well, that was actually pretty hard work!).

Advocacy journalism became a mission for me over the years. With support from NCEW-AOJ, I had a hand in organizing more than a dozen workshops for college editorial writers; we invited them to think in new ways about advocacy journalism.

Several months before I separated from The Post-Standard on Jan. 31, 2013, I wrote a long memo to my editors making the case for a continued and robust role for opinion in the new digital newsroom:

• The editorial voice is unique in the community as an honest broker, disinterested observer and advocate.
• Editorial journalism in Syracuse dates back to the 1830s. Competition continued through the 1990s between The Post-Standard and the Herald Journal, both Newhouse newspapers. The news staffs' rivalry � and surprising differences in political endorsements � kept things lively through the 2000 merger.
• A community needs a gatekeeper for letters and commentary amid the din and cacophony of the Internet.
• The editorial itself has a vital analytical and prescriptive role.

The decision to lay off more than 100 of us in a major pivot toward digital journalism was made. A generous severance package would get me to pension activation.

As Departure Day neared, with encouragement from Editorial Page Editor Marie Morelli, I settled on writing a �final editorial.� I summarized the case, adding references and citations from Aristotle, Joseph Pulitzer and S.I. Newhouse.

That editorial got spiked. It was too self-referential. If one departing staffer got to write an essay, others would want to do the same. Bittersweet parting notes would be a downer.

I was heartened by Marie�s accompanying assurance that there would still be editorials in the three-times-a-week print edition and online. I depersonalized my draft.

�No objections to the philosophy but the tone needs to change. It�s too sad�,� wrote the new digital chief, Tim Kennedy. He was right. He offered some good suggestions to make the piece more upbeat about the future. And he added words of encouragement: �This is a piece that should be written.�

I took a crack at it as time ran out, and things fell into place � as they always tended to do, through the estimated 21,000 editorials and millions of words. The published editorial you see here is the result of what so many editorials are: a collaborative process that combines the ideas of members of the editorial board, shaping the argument for maximum effect. I sent a copy to my friend Kenton Bird at the University of Idaho, for comparison purposes.

The end result was a clear improvement over my original. It still began and ended with good old Aristotle. It still made the case for editorials, and included a pledge to carry on.

Fred Fiske was president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers (now AOJ) in 2001, when Sept. 11 scratched the convention, "an eventful year," he recalls. He has a Harvard BA in history and literature and master's in journalism from Columbia University. Journalism work began in 1973 at the Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times, then The Post-Standard in Syracuse in 1979. He began writing editorials in 1981, and was editorial page editor from 1983 until a 2000 merger.

He joined NCEW in 1982, served on various committees, the NCEW board and NCEW Foundation Board, traveled to Eastern Europe in 1990, chaired the Journalism Education Committee, edited The Masthead before rising through elected NCEW leadership roles.