Reuters colleague says farewell to a cranky editor

Derek Caney, the home page editor of Reuters.com, sent out the following email about one of his colleagues on Tuesday:

There are a lot of people saying goodbye today. And all of them deserve our honor and respect. But it’s not really Gerry McCormick’s style to write his own obit. So if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to start the ball rolling, honoring this Reuters institution with a few memories of my own. And maybe, if anyone else would like to add to them, we can send the “don’t reply all” crowd running for the hills.

Gerry McCormick filed the very first story I ever wrote for Reuters, probably a copper market report. He walked, nay, stormed over to my desk and said, “I don’t know what language you used when you wrote for Dow Jones, but here we write in English.”

Once, I had the temerity to suggest that perhaps he could be a little quicker at filing my very important analysis on the zinc market. Gerry’s reply: “We file news here, Caney. When you write something that falls into that category, I’ll file it quickly.”

When I was an editor for the widget team, I spotted an odd turn of phrase in a story he was editing. I made the mistake of asking him to reword it. Gerry’s reply: “If you’re editing chops are so good, you edit the (expletive deleted) story.” And then he spiked the story.

Gerry had a television on his desk while he was tasting. And he often liked to watch reruns of “Little House On The Prairie” or “Matlock.” A reporter who is no longer with the company asked him to turn it down. “I’m trying to work,” she said. Gerry’s reply: “Well, first time for everything.” He turned the volume higher.

After I left the copy desk for dot.com, he never said goodbye. He did, however, call me “a traitor” and “a fake journalist” and said I was welcome to come back to the copy desk if I “ever wanted to go back to doing some real work.”

So may I just say, Gerry, you are the eccentric cranky asshole father I already had.

You are also one of my favorite people I have ever worked with.

May our paths cross again soon.