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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2008 > February > 05 > Entry
Remembering Joe Fenley
Joe Fenley has died.
Here is his obituary as it appeared today in the DDN:
By Anthony Gottschlich
Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
DAYTON — Former Dayton Daily News Managing Editor Joe Fenley died overnight following a lengthy illness.
Mr. Fenley, 74, died in hospice care at the Dayton Veterans Administration Medical Center, according to his daughter, Elizabeth Smith.
Known as an old-fashioned newspaperman who had a hard-nosed yet compassionate style, Mr. Fenley served as managing editor from 1976 until his retirement in 1988.
“He touched everything that went on in the newsroom,” said Steve Sidlo, Fenley’s immediate successor and now publisher of the Springfield News-Sun. “He was so compulsive about making everything just the way he thought it should be. Every paper that came off the presses back then had Joe Fenley’s fingerprints on every page.”
Mr. Fenley led the newsroom when the Daily News and Journal Herald merged into one newspaper in 1986. A tireless worker and teacher to many, the University of Missouri graduate and photography buff thrived on the coverage of breaking news.
“One day something happened, something blew up somewhere, but we didn’t have a photographer handy and Joe grabbed a camera and ran over there and shot it himself!” Sidlo recalled with a laugh. “He was never above doing anything in the newsroom. He loved every facet of the job of putting out a newspaper, and he was happy to dive in there and do whatever he could to get the story right.”
Asked what he learned most from his mentor, Sidlo replied, “His integrity. He taught me a lot about pure integrity. He was obsessed with accuracy, balance and fairness.”
Mr. Fenley, Sidlo added, valued restraint over sensationalism, especially when the news involved ordinary people thrust into the limelight because of some tragic circumstance.
He also respected the role newspapers play in society.
Upon his retirement, he said, “The most important journalism that we’ve done is when we’ve looked at subjects of significant importance to the community and tried to address them in ways that contributed to the dialogue of the community, where the paper could be a positive presence.”
Mr. Fenley, a Staten Island, N.Y., native, served four years in the U.S. Navy as an aviation ordnance man. He joined the Daily News in August 1963 after his first newspaper job with the Painesville Telegraph in northeastern Ohio.
After serving stints as court reporter and business editor, he left in 1969 to work for Industry Week, a New York City-based business magazine. He returned to the Daily News in 1972 as an assistant city editor and was made metropolitan editor in 1974.
“Joe Fenley’s energy and enthusiasm for the news was unsurpassed,” said retired Daily News reporter Rob Modic, whom Fenley hired in 1979. “As a reporter in the courthouse, he was well known to cover five trials in a day and he knew everything that happened. As he moved up the ranks of the newspaper, he applied that (energy) to the entire community.”
For several years Mr. Fenley served on the board of the Family Service Association and later on the board of Building Bridges, a program concerned primarily with at-risk teenagers.
In retirement, he practiced photography and taught at Miami University in Oxford. He also authored a book, The Deadly Groom: An Ohio-Arkansas True-Crime Saga.
He and his wife Ann had a son, Brian, and two daughters: Shawn, who preceded him in death, and Elizabeth.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
I met Joe Fenley on one occasion. He came out to Yellow Springs to appear on my radio program, the Book Nook, on WYSO Public Radio.
We had quite a conversation about his book, The Deadly Groom: An Ohio-Arkansas True-Crime Saga. After he retired, “he felt compelled to write about the murder of the widow of a former colleague.”
I could tell that this was a story that had piqued his journalistic instincts. It is a fascinating story. I was honored to spend that long ago hour with a real newspaper guy.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: we remember
Comments
By Bob Batz Jr.
February 9, 2008 8:37 PM | Link to this
Joe Fenley was a gruff presence, but I’ll always remember the kind and patient way he nurtured a kid who was still in college and learning to write. He is one of the best editors I’ve ever worked for.By ron rollins
February 5, 2008 10:44 PM | Link to this
joe was a fine man and a terrific journalist. he was managing editor when i was hired to the DDN 21 years ago, as an assistant metro editor, and he was a good guy to learn from. he was passionate about the news and equally passionate about getting it to the good people who read his paper in a way that they would find to be informative, entertaining and useful. he knew the town better than anyone, and would frequently utter, “you know, this is really one hell of a news town.” true nuff. he’d always wear a knit tie and a sport coat in the office, no matter the time of year, and had the ever-present cigarette, usually a filterless camel, chesterfield or pall mall. those were his eventual undoing, no doubt, but they were also very much a part of his persona and who joe was, the face of the great, grizzled newsman he was and wanted to be. we’ll miss him a lot.