Se retira Tom Fiedler

Friday, Dec. 15, 2006

To the Staff:

Today's headline has two parts:

Tom Fiedler, Executive Editor, is announcing his retirement after an extraordinary journalistic career that spans 33 years at The Miami Herald.

Anders Gyllenhaal, currently Editor and Senior Vice President of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and whom many of you know from his time here as a reporter and editor in the 1980s, will return to the Herald to become Executive Editor when Tom leaves at the end of February.

It is an uncommon moment when a newspaper says goodbye -- and hello -- to two such distinguished journalists.

First, a few words about Tom. It would be hard to overstate Tom’s contribution to The Miami Herald in the years since he joined the paper as deputy Palm Beach bureau chief in 1973. Tom’s beat was local government and politics, which would become his lifelong passion and ticket to the top. From Palm Beach he went to Tallahassee and later to Washington, D.C., as The Herald’s correspondent. In 1981, he returned to South Florida as urban affairs editor.

Best known for his work as political editor and columnist from 1984 until 1998, Tom covered four presidential campaigns for The Miami Herald and Knight Ridder, and in 1988 he won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Gold Medal for breaking the story about presidential candidate Gary Hart and his relationship with Donna Rice. He covered The White House and the Persian Gulf War for the Herald and our sister papers. Along the way, he shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Yahweh cult, won an IRE award for reporting on local political corruption and shared an NABJ first prize for coverage of the black economic boycott of Miami in 1994.

Tom was named Editor of The Herald’s Editorial Pages in 1999, a position he held until he became executive editor in July of 2001. The list of his accolades is a long one. Pulitzer juror, national political commentator in print and on TV, trustee of Florida First Amendment Foundation and chairman of the Interamerican Press Association's Institute for Investigative Journalism. In all of this, he has served Miami Herald Media Company with distinction, and made many, many friends. It will not be easy to say goodbye.

I'll leave it to Tom to share with you his vision for the next phase of life, but I know it involves writing, golfing, biking and grandkids. Tom will serve as editor-at-large during a transitional period.

Anders Gyllenhaal

I could not be more pleased that Anders Gyllenhaal has accepted the offer to lead The Miami Herald newsroom into our next phase. In the years since he left The Herald in 1991, Anders has become a leader in our industry, known both for his innovations in news and for promoting the best in traditional journalistic values. He left Miami to become metro editor at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and rose through the ranks to executive editor and senior vice president. He held that post until 2002, when he moved to Minneapolis to become editor and senior vice president at the Star Tribune.

Anders serves on the boards of the Pulitzer Prize, the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the American Committee of the International Press Institute. He is former chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Anders’ first tour of duty at The Miami Herald began in the Broward bureau in 1979, first as a municipal reporter, and later as a federal courts reporter and a projects writer. He did a GA stint on the Dade City Desk, covered the state beat and the Florida Legislature from an Orlando base, and returned to South Florida on the investigations team. After switching to editing, he worked in several locations as a copy editor and an assignments editor. Anyone who remembers working with Anders in those days will recall a journalist of uncommon ethics, energy and talent.

Anders will be returning to South Florida with his wife Beverly Mills, also a Herald alum and still our food columnist, and his two children, Sam and Grey, both of whom were born here. He will be joining us around the first of March.

David Landsberg