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Staff pulls together during tough times

'Daily News' loses two passionate journalists within days

In just over 48 hours, two voices of the Dayton Daily News have been silenced.

Jeff Adams, online operations editor for the newspaper's Web site, DaytonDailyNews.com, was setting up his video equipment Thursday in Springfield before a midnight campaign rally by Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards.

Witnesses reported that he collapsed suddenly, and efforts by medics, already on the scene, were futile. He was pronounced dead at Mercy Hospital, the victim of an apparent heart attack.

News of Jeff's death sent shock waves through the newspaper. He was a cheerful, energetic editor and photojournalist who was deeply involved in pioneering new audio and video technologies. At 50, he was much too young to be felled like this. He leaves behind a wife, Cheri, who heads the astronomy program at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, and a son, Nathan, a freshman at Purdue University.

He also leaves behind many stricken friends, among them my daughter, Kacey, who Jeff mentored this past summer when she interned in the paper's photography department. I will forever be grateful to Jeff for that, and especially for the advice he gave her at a farewell lunch: "Whatever you decide to do in life," he told my daughter, "follow your passion."

It was great advice and it mirrored the way Jeff lived.

Many of us were at Routsong Funeral Home in Kettering on Sunday at Jeff's visitation when we learned that yet another member of the newspaper's staff had died.

Derek Ali, a reporter for this newspaper since 1984, had been working as a disc jockey at a party early Sunday, a sideline he enjoyed. According to police, shots were fired at guests as they left the affair. Police said Derek's last act was to push a woman out of the way of the gunfire. He was felled by a bullet to the upper torso.

Cathy Mong, a veteran reporter of 23 years at the Dayton Daily News, was on the phone, tears streaming down her face, interviewing friends of Derek's when I got to the newsroom. Cathy's a smart, tough journalist. Her desk is next to Derek's, and they were close.

Other reporters were working the story, too, trying to eke out the details of where the shooting happened, if there were suspects, witnesses, how it happened.

Community News Editor Laurie Denger spotted Cathy, walked over, and the two hugged and cried. Then, pros that they are, they got back to work. There was a story to cover, and we needed to get it right.

Among the hardest calls Cathy had to make were to Derek's daughters, Leah and Zuri. Leah told Cathy that when she heard the news of her father's death, she called his number at the newspaper, getting his voice mail, "just to hear his voice" one more time.

Martin Gottlieb, our senior editorial page writer, told me a story about Derek that said so much about his love for this community.

The two men were on an elevator and Martin asked Derek about a rash of crimes in his Dayton neighborhood, wondering why he didn't leave the area.

"Hey, you can't run away from it," Martin recalls Derek saying.

"By 'it,' I suppose he meant the country's whole urban problem," Martin said. "Running wouldn't help solve it."

Indeed, if police reports are right, he did the opposite, he threw himself into harm's way to save another person.

Derek was well known in Dayton and Trotwood and deeply involved in civic affairs. His killing sparked outrage.

"We have to take back our city," Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin said. "The days of people standing behind their doors saying 'I don't want to get involved' are over."

That sentiment was echoed by Trotwood Mayor Donald McLaurin. "I don't know what's going on in this world that African-Americans are being gunned down for no reason."

Saying he "will join the mayor in condemning this," McLaurin said, "I'm prayerful something good in all this will come out. I don't know what it is, but we need something good to come of this."

At the Dayton Daily News, we're praying along with him for the families of our fallen colleagues.

Jeff Bruce is the editor of the Dayton Daily News. His telephone number is 225-2335. His e-mail address is jeffbruce@DaytonDailyNews.com.