Next acts
WE HAVE a joke around the office here at the editorial page: “Globe gets action!’’ We shout it whenever something happens that we have coincidentally urged in an editorial. The joke is particularly funny (well, to us) when a change occurs in some far-off place, such as Burma or Iran, as if members of the regime are poring over the Globe to get their marching orders. Or if we’ve written one of those “weather-torials’’ about a particularly dreary spring, and the sun comes out.
In the nine years that I have been privileged to be editor of this page, the Globe has tried to make a brighter day for the region’s many communities. We put a human face on otherwise obscure line items in the state budget. We pressed for reform at all levels of government, not as just another negotiating ploy but because it was the right thing to do. We supported full marriage rights for same-sex couples because we believe there are no lesser lives. We highlighted neglected natural resources, such as the area’s many public beaches, and the unrealized potential of the human resource. Every day we tried to do a little bit to move bureaucracies, expose injustices, and correct imbalances of power. Sometimes, we got action.
I was once described in a magazine profile as “the most powerful woman in Boston.’’ This was cause for much hilarity among my family and friends. But of course it’s not the power of any one individual, but only this institution, The Boston Globe, that gives the editorial page its influence. We try to be good stewards of that power: giving differing views a respectful hearing, digging deep into the issues, getting around in the neighborhoods, lifting the veil a bit on what must seem like a dark art to many of our readers. But the Globe - a trusted, principled watchdog, advocate, and convener - is what this community responds to, and why I am optimistic about its future.
Today is my last day on the Globe staff, after 24 utterly absorbing years. Happily, I have an extraordinary successor in Peter Canellos, our Washington bureau chief. And I am not going far. I’ll have an office across from the State House, and I will be writing a weekly column on the Globe’s op-ed page. There should be plenty of action in that.
- RENÉE LOTH 