Dear readers,
I write this late Friday, having just edited Mike Littwin’s column about the impeachment inquiry and, before that, spent the evening with Mike and the rest of our Indy team celebrating this year’s Denver Press Club Hall of Fame inductees. Our friend and managing editor, Tina Griego, was one of them.
Mike’s column and countless other pieces of news and news commentary these days remind us of what a cynical time this is. Not that we journalists need reminding. We see and hear plenty to be cynical about from our front-row seat to politics, power and public policy. More personally, the struggles within our own industry leave, even at an upbeat event like tonight’s, a palpable sense of mourning for a time not long ago when nearly twice as many journalists had full-time jobs covering our communities and state.
These things can harden you. They have hardened me. But not Tina Griego, who is one of the least cynical people I know.
She took the stage tonight, all smiles and softness, and talked about a road trip she and her daughter took recently to the Wet Mountain Valley, one of the few remaining communities in Colorado with a stellar view of the night sky. She talked about the brightness of the stars and the vastness of their numbers, and the way they remind us that we are small. She talked about the importance of that reminder, especially for journalists who need to make room for the people who trust us to share their experiences so we can truly see and hear them.
As Tina told it, their stories are like stars – sacred and full of light. She reminded tonight’s banquet room full of working and former journalists how many thousands of stories each has helped tell in this state, and how many millions that we as a collective press corps have put out there. She urged us, with an earnestness and grace by which anyone who knows or reads Tina has undoubtedly been moved, to keep shining light on people who inhabit spaces of vulnerability and darkness. And she inspired us, no matter how many reasons we may all have to be cynical, to hold dearly onto our wonder.
Tina Griego is a gift to The Indy and to our readers with every story she edits and writes. We congratulate her for this much deserved Hall of Fame induction, appreciate our colleagues at the Press Club for honoring her, and thank you for supporting our work.
Susan Greene, editor
Thanks for publicizing the honor to Tina Griego. It sounds like a wonderful speech, well suited to the people and the times we are in.,
Do you suppose you could encourage her to publish a version of it?