David Carr was a journalistic giant, a wordsmith like no other, eulogized as “the finest media critic of his generation” by his boss, the executive editor of The New York Times, and remembered fondly and passionately by the throngs of people who worked with him and whose lives he so deeply touched.
He was also my friend.
I first became acquainted with David, whose storied life was cut way too short, while working as an editor on the Sunday Business section of The Times in the early 2000s. (We were both fairly new to the paper, and he was assigned to the daily side covering the publishing industry.) But our friendship grew outside the newsroom. We lived less than a mile from each and so I saw him frequently around Montclair, N.J., home to myriad other writers, editors and television personalities. I encountered a few of them, too, but it was David who took the time to get to know me. (He was genuinely interested in people.)
He was a great listener and willing confidante. “Write a book about something you’re passionate about,” he once offered when conversation turned to career paths. And hilarious to boot. “I never eat the hot food in the cafeteria,” he told me. Why the heck not? “Because that’s where the company hides the ‘chip,’ ” he deadpanned.
We had coffee together and breakfast at Toast and the Tick Tock Diner, where he discussed his upcoming memoir “The Night of the Gun.” He invited me to his twin daughters’ high school graduation party at his home, and I got to meet his lovely family.
I remember the excitement and pride as he revealed, over eggs and bacon at the Tick Tock one morning on the way to work, the proofs for the magazine cover story that would feature excerpts of The Gun, which chronicled his years of addiction to drugs and alcohol with blunt and harrowing storytelling prowess. “This must’ve been cathartic for you – is that why you wrote it?” I asked. “I have two daughters about to go to college,” he responded. But I have a hunch that his intentions went well beyond the mere mercenary. Undoubtedly, he and his book helped many people in the throes of addiction as well as those wanting to hold on to their own recovery.
As David’s celebrity grew and his calendar filled, I saw less and less of him. But I was still able to hear his “voice,” that distinctive gravely Midwestern twang, in his astute Media Equation columns every Monday and in his other masterfully written pieces. His was a beautiful mind. His work and tenacity about maintaining journalism excellence inspires me to be the best that I can.
And so when word came of his sudden death on Feb. 12 – I learned of his passing in an iPhone news alert, the same way I learned of the death of another media great, Bob Simon, the day before – I took the news like everyone else who knew him: pretty badly. Yet there was also some level of solace in knowing that he died doing what he loved most: Not too long before he collapsed at his desk, the result of lung cancer and heart disease, he was on a panel interviewing the whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
The next day The Times held a memorial of sorts in the heart of the newsroom – there were more people there than any Pulitzer announcement I’ve ever attended – and I listened as scores of his colleagues told their own David story. He had that special gift, it seems, of making everyone feel like a BFF. Myself included.
After an epic, two-and-a-half-hour commute from work during a snowstorm (You don’t wanna know!), I had this little beauty waiting for me, the culmination of three years of challenging work, scripted, of course, in traditional Old English font.
