Old grey gentleman

The opening sentence of this profile of Al Siegal of the Times really grabs you. Amazing that in this day and age people like this still exist--great and even vital at what they do, yet eschewing all hype.

Man Who Knew Plenty: Times’ Siegal Imprinted Invisibly on Newspaper

Tom Scocca in the New York Observer: “There’s nobody who has had more tangible, visible effect on the newspaper you see when you pick up The New York Times every day than Al Siegal,” Craig Whitney said.

Al Siegal—Allan M. Siegal—retired on May 12, shortly after turning 66 (the mandatory masthead retirement age of 65 is slightly elastic). Mr. Whitney, formerly the night news editor, inherited Mr. Siegal’s title as standards editor.

He did not, however, take over Mr. Siegal’s position at the paper. There are many measures of the depths of the influence Mr. Siegal exerted on West 43rd Street, and one of them is this: Mr. Siegal was not assigned to be standards editor; the title of standards editor was assigned to Mr. Siegal.

It was, Mr. Siegal said, a way to formalize the responsibilities that had “stuck to me” through the decades. He served as the in-house authority on language, style, taste, professional ethics and practical newspapering—part small-town judge, part English teacher, part confessor and part oracle. He co-authored the paper”s stylebook and took part in creating its ethics manual, and he helped design the first computer system in the newsroom. When an outsider would call a spokesperson to ask what The Times’ practice was on a particular matter, the spokesperson would call Mr. Siegal and ask him what the paper’s practice was.

“The cliché would be to say that he was the conscience, but he was kind of the conscience,” said Daniel Okrent, the former public editor.

Uncredited photo of Siegal via ASNE interview.