Every time I walk by Dave Flessner’s old desk, my heart sinks a little.
Flessner, a longtime business reporter and editor for Chattanooga’s newspapers, retired a few months ago, and his former desk is neatly cleaned off except for a few books, including an old AP stylebook and a bound history of the Coca-Cola company.
He still shows up in the newsroom occasionally working on freelance pieces, but it’s not the same as his daily presence.
I miss my friend Dave. We used to commiserate about changes in the news business and laugh out loud about newsroom antics going back to the 1980s.
(READ MORE: Dave Flessner retires from the Times Free Press)
When I came to work for The Chattanooga Times in 1982, almost the whole newsroom was filled with baby boomers, and the Chattanooga New-Free Press, a few blocks over, was similarly stocked with people who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s.
There were a few Greatest Generation folks (born 1901-1927) still around back then. John Popham, a former New York Times correspondent and Chattanooga Times managing editor, used to find me in the Times clip morgue and tell me about his civil-rights-era reporting through the Deep South. Popham was a decorated WWII Marine veteran.
(READ MORE: John Popham, Chattanooga’s iconic newsman)
I remember thinking that the institutional memories of people like Col. Popham at the Times and Lee Anderson, former publisher at the News-Free Press (both deceased), were precious assets of both properties.
People forget what a wide swath of ages are represented by the boomer generation. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are baby boomers, albeit at opposite ends of the age bracket. Trump was born in 1946 and Harris in 1964.
For about the last 10 years, the number of baby boomers has been slowly dwindling in newsrooms (and other workplaces) around the United States. Even the youngest boomers are now cresting 60 and nearing retirement age. As recently as 2013, boomers accounted for 22% of all American journalists.
Last week, I brought a class of UTC communications students to the Times Free Press and arranged for them to meet with young newsroom staffers who are only a bit older. It surprised me that some of the reporters said that one of the good things about the Times Free Press newsroom is that there are still some old-timers around who are willing to share their local knowledge.
For some time, newsrooms across America have have been weighted at both ends of the age spectrum, with boomers and Gen Xers filling the leadership roles and millennials and Gen Z folks anchoring the roster.
Much like the Greatest Generation began to disappear from workplaces in the 1980s and 1990s, the remaining boomers will be cleaning out their desks soon.
The American kids who came of age after World War II have had a good run in American journalism, but the end of their era is nigh.
Such is the circle of life.
I stopped sitting at my own desk a while back. Instead I sit in a very public area of the newsroom where co-workers are more prone to stop by and chat.
This camaraderie with smart people is the lifeblood of a newsroom, and the thing I will someday miss the most.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.