Rockville Centre journalist recalls long career at the Daily News

“The editor called me and said, ‘Kid, you’ve got six months. Sink or swim,’” recalled Rockville Centre resident Arthur Browne, former editor-in-chief and publisher of the Daily News, where he spent 45 years. “That night, I remember going home, and aside from my marriage and the birth of my children, it was clearly one of the happiest nights of my life.”

That promotion to a reporter role came for Browne in 1973 after 14 months as a copy boy, and was the first of many promotions he received in more than four decades at the newspaper. Serving as editor-in-chief and publisher during his last year at the company, he resigned at the end of December.

Browne also served as an editor, managing editor and editorial page editor, during which he led his staff to a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for a series of editorials called “9/11: The Forgotten Victims.” The five-month series established how breathing the atomized air of the World Trade Center after 9/11 had sickened more than 12,000 emergency responders, killing at least five.

“It’s hard to know what he didn’t bring to the Daily News,” said current Editorial Page Editor Josh Greenman, who noted Browne’s depth of knowledge for New York City history, politics and law and his “profound passion for the core mission of the paper, which is serving the ordinary people. The people of New York City.”

In October 2016, Browne received the opportunity to step into a role he had never sought out. “It was something of a surprise,” he said of being asked to take over as the Daily News’s editor-in-chief. He paused to find the words. “It was terrific.”

When Chicago-based media publishing company, Tronc, bought the Daily News last year, Browne was asked to also serve as the paper’s publisher, handling advertising matters in addition to managing the newsroom for his final four months.

“It’s a very unusual arrangement,” he said of fulfilling both roles, adding that he had planned his departure from the company a year or two in advance. “It didn’t make sense to kind of have a hanger-on editor-in-chief, now publisher, for any extended period of time.”

He left the News on the final day of 2017, leaving behind a legacy capped by helping the media outlet continue its shift into being a “digital-first” publication, which he noted is the new norm for newspapers across the country.

“It requires, as editor, a really deep understanding of the digital universe, including the economics of the digital universe,” Browne explained, “so that was a whole set of ideas that I had to grapple with.”

In a typical newsroom of newspapers of the past, Browne said, the editor-in-chief would meet with his section editors each morning to discuss what they were working on. That afternoon, the editors may reassemble and discuss their prepared stories in order to map out the next day’s paper.

But with more customers digesting news on subway rides and walks to work, they want news immediately, Browne noted. “You ill-serve your newsroom organization if you build your planning and your story discussions around tomorrow’s paper,” he said, “because tomorrow’s paper is left behind.”

Instead, Browne urged the use of Slack, a business application that allowed the Daily News’s editors to share their story ideas with one another constantly, including a description and an estimated time that it would be published on the web.

“It was an attempt to go to dynamic, 24-hour-a-day virtual news meeting that kept pace with the rhythms of the web, as opposed to the static presentation for a newspaper,” he said. “That was a significant change for the newsroom and it was successful.”

Most stories that show up in the Daily News’s print edition on any given day have already been published online in the previous 24 hours, Browne said. The company’s website and newspaper are essentially two different publications, he added, noting that the site is geared more toward the News’s national audience, while the print edition is focused more on New York City.

Local news does not travel far on the web, Browne said, and the industry is responding. “…The economics of digital publishing of local news is very challenging,” he added. “All across the country, local news coverage is shriveling…and it’s a cause of great concern.”

In addition to his Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Browne has worked on countless stories and projects over the years. Martin Gottlieb, a former editor of Browne’s during his first stint at the News from 1974 to 1982, recalled working with him on a series involving the looting that took place in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn after a blackout in 1977.

“He was just an incredible digger on that as he is on everything,” Gottlieb said, adding that Browne uncovered information on failed city plans to rebuild the neighborhood. Describing Browne as having a wry sense of humor and being fearless, Gottlieb noted that he “caused agita to whoever was running the show in City Hall, including Mayor [Ed] Koch.

“If anyone was going to make the road from copy boy to publisher at a single publication,” Gottlieb added, “I would have put my money on Arthur at the Daily News.”

Browne’ has lived in the same Rockville Centre home with his wife, Gretchen, since 1978, raising four children, who each went to Jennie E. Hewitt Elementary School. He now has 12 grandchildren, and three currently attend Hewitt.

Though he bid farewell to a 45-year career at the Daily News, Browne said he is working on a project for Newsday, and also hopes to embark on more long-form work, like his 2015 book “One Righteous Man,” about Samuel Battle, New York City’s first African American cop.

“I’m 67 and left a job so you say, well you’re retired,” Browne said. “I’m resigning from the Daily News. I’m not retired.”