RIP Bob Fryer

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_732225.html

I'm not sure what the RIP thread etiquette is here. Fryer wasn't a sports guy, but I know a few posters here knew him and worked with him at one point or another. He died from "complications from lung cancer" Wednesday. He was 64.

Fryer certainly fit the stereotype of the crusty, old-school news man, but man was he ever sharp. I worked with him at the Valley News Dispatch and at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. He was most recently the managing editor for the Trib.

To paraphrase one of my former co-workers, if Bob told you that you did it right, you KNEW you did it right.

I remember very early in my career writing an enterprise package for sports that was going to run on A1. That meant it had to go through Bob. The problem was, the mainbar was extremely long. It was over 100 inches (broken up into sections) and we knew he was going to lose it when he saw that.

He did. He said there was no way a story should be 100 inches. But he read it. "Damned if I know what you can cut." He helped us tweak a few things and it ran at that length. We won a couple of awards for that package, but I remember Bob's comment more fondly than some plaque I can't find any more.

Another former co-worker posted on Facebook today that unfortunately, what he remembered most right now was seeing Bob outside the building all the time, a reference to him smoking. It saddens me to think of that, too. Damn shame. RIP Bob.

 

Didn't know this was Brit's dad. Absolute shame. I never knew him, but like Jenna and Brit quite a lot.

My thoughts to his family.