With this issue of The Working Waterfront, we bid farewell to our founding editor, David Platt, who is not exactly sailing off into the sunset, but has retired from his fulltime duties as editor of the newspaper, Island Journal and publications director for the Island Institute.
During the past 15 years that he manned the helm of this newspaper, David left his most enduring editorial legacy. In the thousands of pages of The Working Waterfront he edited, David created a kind of journalistic style rare these days – at once credible while humble; and passionate while fair. He mentored writers new to the profession, cajoled occasionally cranky island contributors and smoothed the fevered brows of professional freelancers. And throughout, David’s own understated voice served to let the voices of others in opinion pieces be full-throated.
David was fully aware of the perils of island journalism, where if you know enough to get the story, you can’t tell it; and if you don’t know the story, you won’t get it. David did not cultivate controversy for controversy’s sake; nor did he shy from it while covering a smoldering conflict. He had his own method of dispatching a trusted “war correspondent” to cover the most inflamed island stand-offs, but matched quieter talents with important but less visible stories.
To his credit, David had but a few editorial rules, the most famous of which was not to let any outsiders presume to speak for islanders. He would often remind us that any unsolicited story he received that began with “Islanders are hearty folk…” — too often from a stringer for a big city newspaper like the New York Times – was a piece headed for oblivion.
We will miss all his many unassuming talents. But in his new role, David will cover working waterfront topics from the cockpit and deck of his 42-foot sailing vessel NAME, as he cruises the coast and offshore waters of the Gulf of Maine, Atlantic seaboard and the Caribbean. We will ask for his forbearance if we do not view his new role of traveling correspondent as a hardship post. Fair winds and following seas, old friend.