It was late summer when I went to the offices of the Catholic Herald for a job interview. I walked through the front office where two secretaries sat in a cloud of grey cigarette smoke. It was 1984. I was interviewed by the then-editor, Charles W. Carruth, a grey-haired, gruff figure, a bit louder and larger than life.
I was asked if I had any plans of getting married soon; they had just lost their last editorial assistant because she got married. I was asked if I get sick often. Those are questions that prospective employers are not allowed to ask anymore.
Fast forward, I got the job and started on my first day with one of the worst colds I’d ever had, but I made it through the day, the week, the months, and some four decades.
I recall Michael F. Flach, the managing editor, looked as much like Clark Kent as Carruth looked like Perry White. After a few months, I mentioned this to Flach who quipped immediately, “You know who that makes you?” Visions of Lois Lane came to mind, but Flach replied, “Jimmy Olson.” That was the start of a beautiful friendship that endures to this day.
A half-century of the Herald telling the news of the Arlington diocese is something to celebrate, indeed. I’ve been here longer than anyone else and have seen it all, as “older” folks have been known to say.
When I started, we had typewriters. We typed our stories on paper, handed them off to be edited with pens, and then sent clean copies to the printing plant in Gaithersburg, Md., via courier to be typeset and sent back the next day in long strips of slick photo-type paper. We’d cut those, wax them and dummy up the pages on paper templates with faint guidelines on a light table.
The black-and-white film we shot was sent to local developers and we’d get the prints back in a couple days. We used photo wheels to get the proportions and the plant would shoot copies of those and send them back.
Now I can shoot a photo with my cell phone, email it to myself, set it up in Photoshop, place it on a page in InDesign and transmit that to the printing plant in Frederick, Md., with no delay.
But there’s much more than the tech side to producing the Herald. We have told the story of the Arlington diocese for 50 years. It’s been a story of incredible growth, welcoming the strangers with surges in population and diversity, to heart-breaking news, some scandals, incredible conversion experiences, and so many tales of true faith.
So many staffers have come and gone over the years, many leaving their mark.
“Working with the diocese, chronicling all the milestones, ordinations, church dedications, the Herald was the historical record for the diocese,” Flach said. “Bishop Thomas Welsh started all these great organizations and hired a lot of great people to get things off the ground. It was good to be part of all that.”
There were large special issues when a bishop retired and a new bishop was named. “The special issues were budget makers with a lot of congratulatory ads from other dioceses, parishes and diocesan organizations. It gave the bottom line a jolt every time we had a new bishop,” Flach said. And the specials were popular among readers.
“We weren’t afraid to cover the big stories,” he said. “We covered the pope multiple times locally and in the U.S.: World Youth Days, papal trips to Denver, New Orleans, Toronto, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Washington.
“We invested time and money to send staff writers to places you would think it would be difficult to cover but we did a good job of all that coverage,” Flach said. “And it helped train the staff that way. It gave them a lot of responsibility to organize themselves and figure out how best to cover international events.”
The Herald covered Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, including his funeral, and produced a great issue on the new papacy of Pope Leo XIV with local angles.
“You’ve done a great job of continuing a great tradition that hopefully will stand the test of time,” Flach said. “Congratulations to the Herald and the staff on putting out a quality newspaper. I look forward to it and continue to read it in print and online.”
Flach said the one thing he misses most about working at the Herald is “all the good people we worked with over the years and how much we enjoyed each other’s company. We had a lot of fun times. Fifty years is certainly a great milestone,” Flach said.
Former Staff Writer Clare MacDonnell Lazzuri (who met and married Ad Rep Brian Lazzuri) said the biggest story she worked on during her time at the Herald was the coverage of the sudden death of Bishop John R. Keating in March 1998.
“It was such a shock to everyone,” she said. “We all went in on Sunday to get started on what would be a major, large issue of the paper. I remember Mike and Ann dividing up tasks for everyone and we tried to do the best we could to cover the life of Bishop Keating under very short notice.”
The Herald newsroom witnessed 9/11. We could see the smoke from the Pentagon from our office windows. It was deadline day, and we had to completely remake the issue with the breaking news. I interviewed Father Gerry Creedon, who was on Capitol Hill that day. He had been evacuated to a secure location.
Ad Manager Carlos Salinas remembered that day. “We watched helicopters circling the Pentagon, unaware of the full extent of what had just happened. Chancery staff gathered on the ninth floor to pray with then-Bishop Paul Loverde around noon. Afterward, the Herald staff still went to press, just as they have on every press day for the past 50 years. It was a powerful moment that revealed their commitment.”
Former Staff Writer Gretchen Crowe was sent to cover Pope Benedict’s 2008 visit to the White House. She called me from the White House lawn saying they were ushering all the media inside and what should she do as we hadn’t obtained inside press access. I told her to get off the phone and go inside with the rest of the journalists. She did.
“I don’t think you can get bigger than a papal visit, and I got to cover Pope Benedict XVI’s visit with President Bush at the White House,” said Crowe, now editor of OSV News. “I got inside the Oval Office for a photo op I will never forget.”
Another papal visit in 2015 was with Pope Francis. Former Multimedia Designer Ashleigh Kassock recalls
it was another all-hands-on-deck assignment with everyone able to cover at least one papal event.
Kassock shot photos of the pope at the Cathedral of St. Mathew the Apostle and the capitol, “which was a pretty amazing experience,” she said. “I bought a lens just for the occasion. I still call it my Pope Francis lens. It’s something I hope to tell my grandkids about some day.”
Staff Writer Katie Collins Scott covered Pope Francis also. “From that once-in-a-lifetime assignment I always will remember the tears that came when I first glimpsed Pope Francis at the Mass; how he spoke with force and wisdom in the Capitol, challenging both Democrat and Republican lawmakers; and how much the people (myself included) loved Francis.”
Ad Rep Keith Pohlmeier remember the deadline day that the power went out in part of the building. “A conference room down the hall had some power so we moved multiple work stations down the hall and found a printer in the building that was working and while the editors made final edits the rest of the staff literally ran back and forth down the hallways bringing printouts for review while trying to meet deadlines. While the rest of the Chancery staff was sent home for the day, the Herald still went to press. This was a great opportunity to witness the dedication of the Herald staff in a new way.”
Former Production Coordinator Stacy Rausch said she recalls when the Herald redesigned the print issue. “It was so interesting being involved in choosing new fonts, masthead, templates for layout and more.”
Dozens of people have come and gone since those days and most still keep in touch.
“The steadfast dedication of the entire Herald staff is the quality that most stands out in producing the newspaper on time and keeping the publication’s digital platforms timely and current,” said Kevin Schweers, executive editor since 2021. “No job is too big or too small. Each member of the team works hard to produce compelling content for our readers.
“The saying that journalism is the first draft of history is true, and we’re blessed to provide that service in the Arlington diocese. The momentous times in the life of the diocese — a new bishop, a priesthood ordination, church and school constructions — the Herald was there, and we look forward to being there again.
“And, lest we forget that, we’re regularly reminded when diocesan offices, parishes, schools and others reach out looking for Herald articles and photos from these signature moments,” he said. So, from typewriters to desktop publishing, from early ordinations to recent classes of 12 men, from new parish construction to stories of conversion, it’s been a blessing and a privilege for all of us to be part of the story of the diocese. Our commitment to truth and faith is marked by not just our longevity, but by the quiet, lasting impact our work has had on countless lives.
Augherton can be reached at [email protected].
