Otterblog

A newspaper is obviously a lot more than a newsroom. I think we’re first among equals (as the word newspaper suggests), but we have lots of dedicated folks—from advertising to circulation to the printing press who work hard every day to get the paper out. We’re a big company, and like a lot of big companies, people tend to keep to their own. There’s not a lot of—or as much as there ought to be—interaction between departments.

A rare exception to that isolation was a guy named Mike Bullin, an electrician and building-maintenance staffer at the Journal. He died Sunday of cancer, and his funeral is today. Mike’s day was spent going from department to department taking care of things so that the rest of us could have a more pleasant day at work. Little things, like adjusting the air-conditioning ducts across our newsroom, so that the people who like it hot are happy and those who don’t are too. Or fixing the water fountain or the locking doors or anything else that makes it easier for folks to do their jobs.

Mike knew how to use duct tape to fix a problem, but his preferred method was to figure out what was wrong and take care of it. And he was often relentless in those efforts. He wasn’t satisfied until the problem was solved.

And in his trips throughout the Journal, Mike would tell funny stories—about himself, about his family, about the Journal. If we were all trapped in our cubicles, Mike wasn’t, and he as much as anyone knew we all needed to pull together to get the job done. He was some of the glue that kept us connected.

Young reporters often ask me what the essential skills are to be a journalist. I think they include: a desire to help others, the ability to take apart an issue, and the persistence to make sure things get done right. So, I’ll remember Mike as friend and a colleague and—yes, as a journalist, a part of our newsroom.