Jack Loftis was a class act. During the 16 years I worked for him at the Houston Chronicle, the newsroom was more like a giant family than a place where people just showed up for work. Sure there were the sharp elbows of an ego-driven business, but Jack set a tone that made it more like sibling rivalry than cutthroat competition. And he cared about his employees. I remember one time when the Lifestyle department ran a lengthy interview with Harrison Ford in which the actor complained that Hollywood movies had become about the biggest “goddamn” explosion. The religious folks of Houston inundated the publisher’s office with calls of complaint, and the publisher angrily demanded the immediate termination of the feature writer. Jack refused, although he made clear to everyone that even in quotes the newspaper would never again take the Lord’s name in vain. Any number of Chronicle employees will tell you about how Jack had met Jack Ruby while working in Dallas, or how he was friends with Willie Nelson and helped him early in his career. Sometimes if we needed Willie for a story, Jack would give us Willie’s double-secret telephone number. What you don’t hear often is that Willie kept Jack in his heart, too. One day I was covering a hearing in the Senate chamber where Willie was testifying. I don’t even remember what the bill was about. As he got ready to leave, a gaggle of reporters formed around the musician to ask questions – well, really to be able to say we’d talked to Willie. Nelson didn’t know me from dirt, but he spotted my credentials with Houston Chronicle on them, reached out and picked them up briefly and leaned over to my ear. “How’s Jack doing,” Willie asked. None of this means my life was always gravy with Jack. In fact, the Christmas of 1998 was a bitter one for me because I believe a dispute Jack and I were having over a story was going to end my career. I had written a series of stories about cronyism in the administration of Gov. George W. Bush. When another hit the long-range budget that December, Jack had a cow. From his perspective, the Houston Chronicle was the only newspaper in Texas that was “picking” on Bush and I, in particular, was doing the picking. Bush was likely to be the next president, and he was tired of fielding calls from angry Republicans. Barbara Bush had called the publisher to complain. This latest story was just one too many. But I felt strongly about the story. It would run or I would quit. The whole issue was put on hold for the holidays, causing the dispute to drag into 1999. Eventually, we reached a compromise so the story could run. The focus had changed from Bush to a state agency. All the information was there, though, for the readers. Some time was required before my working relationship with Jack returned to normal. A decade passed and Jack no longer was editor of the Chronicle. One day, the Austin bureau had lunch with Jack to catch up, and it was obvious that he wanted to know whether we were all doing well under the new editors. As the lunch ended and we were walking out, Jack stopped me and said he wanted to apologize because I was right and he was wrong about the Bush story. He didn’t need to do that. It was water under the bridge, and I’m not sure if I had been in his shoes that I would have had his grace to apologize to a subordinate for something long past done with no permanent damage. However, that was Jack’s heart. His employees were like his children to them. Whether it was that feature writer or me, Jack did what he thought was best at the time, but he also cared about us as people, not just cogs in the wheel of a newspaper that would continue to publish even if we were not there. He was the father of the Houston Chronicle family. Jack Loftis was a class act.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 14:10:47 +0000
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