Robert H. Estabrook, Oct. 16, 1918-Nov. 15, 2011

SALISBURY — The consummate journalist, Robert H. Estabrook will have the last word. The veteran national and international as well as local journalist — he was editor and publisher emeritus of The Lakeville Journal — died Tuesday, Nov. 15, at Noble Horizons. He was 93. He several years ago crafted his own obituary. Click here to read it.Estabrook and his wife, Mary Lou, purchased The Lakeville Journal in 1970 and Millerton News in 1972 — and continued an association with them for the next four decades. They sold the papers in 1986, but again became associated with the endeavor when a group of area investors purchased the newspapers in 1995. The next year they launched a third weekly, The Winsted Journal. “The Northwest Corner has lost a giant — someone whose contributions are too numerous to even try to list,” said state Senator Andrew Roraback (R-30) on Tuesday.“He and Mary Lou embodied the very highest ideals of community journalism. They put their heart and soul into The Lakeville Journal. They gave it their all, and for all the right reasons.“When you look up ‘integrity’ in the dictionary, the definition begins with Bob Estabrook.”The chairman of The Lakeville Journal Company, William E. Little Jr., said, “Bob was a great man, both as a newspaperman and as an individual. It was his and Mary Lou’s work at The Lakeville Journal that pulled me into the newspaper when I first came to the area, which gave me a sense of the region, and I never lost that attraction. I had a built-in admiration for both Bob and Mary Lou from that time on.“Bob was a wonderful mentor who cared deeply about The Lakeville Journal and just as deeply about the community it served.”Estabrook’s death follows by five months that of A. Whitney Ellsworth of Salisbury, who was an investor with Little and others since 1995. Estabrook was active on the company’s advisory board until his death.Lakeville Journal Company Publisher Janet Manko said, “Bob Estabrook set a standard for excellence in community journalism to which we who work at The Lakeville Journal could only hope to aspire. He was a constant inspiration, not only as a journalist, but also as a champion for freedom of information, as a writer and as a person.” “He was a great man who contributed to our town in many ways,” said Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand. “He was a man of intellect, integrity and curiosity — a clear-thinking guy. We all benefited from his devotion to Salisbury and to The Lakeville Journal.”“Every reporter called him Bob. He told us to, so we did,” said longtime Journal reporter and Compass editor Marsden Epworth. “He hired numbers of ambitious, unruly kids and taught them how to do the job. Never accept more than a cup of coffee from a source, he would say. Be honest. Be right. And be fair. Once, he returned my copy on a political debate, saying, ‘We like our readers to have to guess how we feel about the candidates.’ “Bob had a lot of views about language: He banned terms such as currently. Unnecessary, he would say. And his weekly review of the newspaper once it was in print was a tremendous lesson on what he would not expect to see again in this newspaper.“He lived up to his own expectations. He was a graceful writer and could be a very graceful man. Courtly, one young reporter said of him. And very tough, too. Finding a name misspelled in an obituary after we had gone to press, he punched a hole in a wall with his fist.”Brigitte Ruthman, now an investigative reporter with the Republican American, joined The Journal staff in 1983, within weeks of its move from Pocket Knife Square in Lakeville to a new building on Bissell Street.“At the same time,” she said, “the office made the transition from typewriters to CRTS, the first word-processing computers. I can remember Bob at his desk, typing on a keyboard as if it were still a typewriter.”Ruthman continued, “Bob had very high standards — I inadvertently landed in the lap of a professional. He was part of the greatest generation of journalists. He was able to bring together the need to inform and the need to be sensitive. It is important in a small town to not only be first with the news, but to be responsible with the news.”Estabrook was particularly proud of The Lakeville Journal’s aggressive pursuit of the Barbara Gibbons murder in the 1970s. As he wrote in the newspaper’s centennial keepsake in 1977, “When 18-year-old Peter Reilly of Falls Village was arrested in 1973 and convicted of manslaughter in the slaying of his mother, Barbara Gibbons, The Journal campaigned hard through news stories and editorials to illuminate questionable state police procedures. Residents of the area who believed in Reilly’s innocence contributed strongly to his defense.“After Reilly was granted a new trial and subsequently all charges against him were withdrawn, The Journal’s role in helping win his freedom and bring change in state police procedures was recognized in a series of state and national awards. Among them were the national John Peter Zenger Award for Freedom of the Press by the University of Arizona, the Golden Quill award of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and the Horace Greeley award by the New England Press Association.”Estabrook never lost his enthusiasm for the print medium — even as newspapers came to face increasing challenges from television and the Internet.“I believe community papers — usually weeklies, though there are a few dailies — have the best chance of surviving because they perform a function others don’t do as well,” he told Journal reporter Patrick L. Sullivan in 2008.Mitchell W. Pearlman, executive director emeritus of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, said, “Bob was the last of the greatest generation of owner-publishers in Connecticut. I felt fortunate to have known him as a friend and counselor. No one has made a bigger contribution to Freedom of Information in Connecticut than Bob Estabrook.”Pearlman said further, “I’d also add that in addition to being a journalist par excellence, Bob was a leader of that profession in so many ways, not only in the Lakeville region, but throughout the state and nation. He insisted on journalistic integrity, getting the facts right and advocating for causes essential to the preservation of our communities and indeed democracy itself. No one was more respected in his field. Bob also was the poster boy for civility in all matters and was untiring in his efforts to help his neighbors and all those in need. I’ve never met a person more devoted to the well-being of others. All who knew Bob will miss him greatly. I trust that the legacy of his life will not be forgotten by those whose lives he touched so profoundly and who now have the obligation to pass that legacy on to future generations.”Estabrook at a speech when he was inducted into the Connecticut Journalism Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists Connecticut Chapter in 2008 said, “Today, journalism seems to me challenged as perhaps never before, by the relative decline of the print press, the painful cutbacks in foreign news coverage and the new forms of purveying information along with entertainment on television and radio and most particularly the Internet. Never have there been so many distractions from the main business of presenting the news by people seeking to influence, suppress or otherwise distort the content or that presentation for their own narrow purposes. Authenticity is, or ought to be, our password. How can the reader be sure, how does the viewer or listener know, that what he sees or hears is actually from a legitimate source, or some opinion or advertising interloper seeking to manipulate the public? “I don’t know the answers to many or most of these problems, nor do I have a magic antidote for the greed that has affected many facets of journalism. But I do know that the need has never been greater for journalists of integrity who pursue truth in all its aspects and who also are not afraid to admit error. Or respecting the advice of Oliver Cromwell to his generals before the Battle of Dunbar: ‘I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken.’ Let us continue to make of our profession what it has been at its best, a sacred trust. Thank you.”Reporter Ruthman marveled at Estabrook’s longtime weekly column, Perambulating, which could blend national affairs with observations from his latest hike on Mount Riga. He ended the column humbly on Dec. 25, 2008, with these words:“So long to all of you who have put up with my scribblings. It has been a great adventure.”A memorial service for Bob will be held Dec. 10, 2011, at 1 p.m. at the Salisbury Congregational Church. Memorial donations may be sent to the Noble Horizons Auxiliary or the Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association.