It feels odd to announce my retirement from an organization my wife, Monika Maeckle, and I founded just under 11 years ago. But this is it: my final column as the nonprofit news site’s lead columnist.
I’m out of a job for the second time, 11 years after my retirement as executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News. It’s time.
Perhaps I can go out without arousing the ire of my most red-blooded readers, who will have to vent elsewhere now. Some of you, thank you, will actually miss my twice-weekly column. We baby boomers need to make room for next-generation voices, many of whom would readily agree people my age have overstayed our welcome.
My first Social Security check arrives next month, weeks after my 70th birthday.
Take this column as less of a farewell and more of a thank you to San Antonio, the Report’s readers, members, and more donors than can be named here. You know who you are, and I hope you’ll agree the Rivard Report-turned-San Antonio Report has been a good community investment over the years.
I’ve agreed to contribute a weekly Sunday column starting in mid-December, joining the Report’s ranks of freelancers, and there is another exciting new media project on the drawing board I hope to announce soon.
Local accountability journalism remains as important as ever. Example: San Antonio police found an apparently inebriated and injured City Councilman Clayton Perry, lying prone in his own backyard, vehicle engine still running, after allegedly fleeing the scene of a serious vehicle collision. They allowed him to enter his own home instead of jailing him on charges of a hit-and-run DWI. Why have Mayor Ron Nirenberg and San Antonio Police Chief William McManus not condemned this hands-off treatment for an elected city official?
Do not expect the same treatment if you break the law.
I’ve had a front row seat in San Antonio, and all that’s good and not so good about the city since Monika and I with our two young boys returned to Texas after a long sojourn for Newsweek magazine. From years living in civil war zones in Central America to a New York-based, globe-trotting job that kept me far from home, it was time to return to Texas and put down roots.
Whatever I gave up professionally with the move away from the Big Apple, the investment in marriage and family more than made up for it. That was 1989.
My first job as a senior editor was at the now-defunct San Antonio Light. Its 1993 closure led to my promotion to managing editor and then executive editor at the Express-News as ownership passed from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., to the Hearst Corp.
My first retirement came in 2011 after 18 years in the Express-News leadership. Shortly afterwards, I accepted an invitation from Rackspace Chairman Graham Weston to come out to The Castle, the former Windsor Park Mall now available for purchase from its hedge fund owners, to develop the Rivard Report, which first published in early 2012.
Weston’s idea at the time was to develop a local news and civic engagement site called bigcitysmalltown, a perfect description of San Antonio and why we are not Houston, Dallas or Austin. It would showcase the urban core’s comeback for locals. In the end, we decided to go with the Rivard Report name.
Monika and I learned a lot starting the Report: the high price of working ridiculously long hours, the challenge of making payroll, the importance of spending scarce capital wisely, the magic of a startup that makes it.
After three-plus years of robust audience growth, hiring a small staff, and always wondering where the next advertising dollar would come from, I took the advice of my good friends and supporters John and Ann Newman and converted our “no -profit” into a 501©3 nonprofit. That was 2015.
The community support came quickly, and with the help of a strong board of directors, we soon grew from a staff of 6 to 20 talented journalists and nonprofit workers. Our two original newsroom hires, Senior Reporter Iris Dimmick and Photo Editor Scott Ball, are still here. The many talented young professionals I’ve worked with here will provide my most lasting memories.
We changed our name and hired new leadership during the pandemic. The Report is now in the hands of Publisher and CEO Angie Mock and Editor-in-Chief Leigh Munsil.
I’ve had great run. Thanks again, y’all.
