A word on Dan ‘the Man’ Suwyn

  Speaking of “Savannah’s daily newspaper” — like that? — I couldn’t let this chance go by to comment on the stepping down of longtime Morning News Managing Editor Dan Suwyn. So many things about the daily — both good and bad — can be traced directly to Dan’s extremely fertile and quick (sometimes too quick) mind.

So I wanted to pay my respects with this rambling warts-and-all portrait, which I think Dan — a self-deprecating guy with a very sound sense of self-esteem - - might appreciate.

In 1998, Dan made me the classic “offer I couldn’t refuse” to leave Creative Loafing and be the new “Assistant News Planning Editor” of the Morning News — his new-age management way of saying “nightside slot editor.”

I didn’t anguish over the decision long. Creative Loafing was paying me about 23 grand at the time to bust my then-young ass six days a week, so I jumped and jumped quick. The new job offered a substantial pay hike and a position of great responsibility (though, as I would find out later, one of no credit whatsoever).

With a newborn baby and a new house to renovate, it was a no-brainer, with one condition — I would only commit to the nightside for a year. After that, I let it be known, I would be working towards a dayside job.

Dan introduced me effusively to everyone, pinning high hopes on my abilities to completely transform the way things were done at 111 W. Bay Street. I was, of course, deeply honored at the hero’s welcome, until I was told that I was Dan’s new “golden boy” — that was the exact phrase used — and that my “honeymoon period” — also the exact phrase used — would be over soon enough, after which I would be treated like crap. The same way the rest of the newsroom was treated ever since Dan’s arrival, or so the old heads said.

The problem, according to the old newsroom hounds, was that Dan elevated the design staff to the position of demi-gods. Dan’s cardinal sin in their minds was that he, quite simply, cared more about design than about the news. More about pictures than words. This, I came to find out, was not true — not by a long shot — but as we all know by now, perception is indeed reality.

Now it’s true that Dan has an expansive design background and is a remarkable designer in his own right. And it’s true that he made no secret about his effort to seriously upgrade the daily’s design sensibilities, which were indeed in dire freakin’ need of an upgrade when he arrived on the scene.

It was also true that the design staff — by virtue of their position at the end of the editorial food chain — had de facto final say over the newsroom’s hard work. A click of a mouse by a twenty-three-year-old newbie designer and a week’s worth of work by a twenty-year newsroom veteran could be butchered beyond recognition. And sometimes was.

And apparently, the designers just plain made more money than editors and reporters. I suspect this — not some fancied natural antipathy between “word people” and “picture people” — was the actual root cause of the hard feelings.

Enter young Jim.

Dan’s idea was that since I was a well-known “word guy” I would be able to represent the disgruntled newsroom and their various disgruntlements to the young design staff, which I was in charge of from 4 p.m. until the paper hit the presses.

While the trendy young designers would still wield enormous power from behind their bank of high-powered, brand-new Macs — another source of grumbling by the newsies, who were still stuck with decrepit and horrible proprietary newsroom terminals — the thought was that I, with my news background and strong local ties, would give the young’uns some much-needed grounding and old-school gravitas.

Or so that was the idea.

I took to the task with relish at first, schooling the brilliant but incredibly naive young designers on the cynical ins-and-outs of news stories and how to read between the lines to write a gripping headline that best reflected what went on in the story.

But then — as is so often the case with intrepid, lucky explorers — I went native.

The designers were so young, hip and downtown compared to the grizzled, brusque newsroom staff, many of whom seemed to just be waiting out the time until their pension kicked in.

And polite? Don’t let anyone tell you young people don’t have manners these days. The designers Dan hired were delightful, kind, considerate people — hardly deserving of the scorn heaped on them by the newsroom vets, I soon found myself thinking.

I slowly found myself beginning to think not like an editor, but like a designer. I looked at a newspaper page not primarily as a storehouse of verbal knowledge, but primarily as a canvas upon which compelling images would soon be engraved. In a final insult, I soon began taking the design staff’s side in disputes with the newsroom.

Some of this was just foxhole camaraderie, since I worked in close proximity with the designers and not with the newsroom, the bulk of which couldn’t wait to high-tail it back home to Wilmington Island and Ardsley Park at 5 p.m. sharp.

And some of it was that the designers were — how can I say this diplomatically? — just plain nicer people than the reporters and editors.

Long story short: a year came and went. A dayside position came open and Dan dodged the terms of our original deal by taking resumes from inside and outside the company.

Having learned the hard way about Dan’s “golden boy syndrome,” I knew the open job would not go to me, but instead to a sainted, haloed outsider, come to completely transform the way things were done at 111 W. Bay Street.

Appropriately enough, the new golden boy who eventually got the job was named — wait for it — Steve Austin. I kid you not. Yes, the same name as the wrestler and the six million dollar man.

Turns out I didn’t even get the satisfaction of nursing a grudge. Steve Austin was such a damn nice guy, and so obviously better qualified for the job than me, that all I could do was admit that Dan had done the right thing by the newspaper.

About that same week, I got a call from the publisher of Creative Loafing. Their editor was leaving, and would I like to come back and give it another try? For a lot more money this time?

I did not anguish about that decision either. I jumped and jumped quick. A few years later the paper merged with Connect Savannah, and the rest is history.

And each day that goes by at Connect Savannah, I try to adhere to that same vision of a perfect union of design and news — of words and pictures — I learned from Dan Suwyn, the man an entire newspaper loved to hate.

I still think the photos in the Morning News are too damn big. And I still think Dan’s idea to switch the newsroom from the tried-and-true beat system to the “team” system has not panned out to the paper’s advantage.

But for all its many, many faults, one cannot doubt that Savannah’s daily is still a better paper for having Dan Suwyn run its day-to-day news operations for as long as he did.

Here’s to you Dan, and best of luck to you, whatever it is that you go on to do.

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