Lyle Muller: Gazette leader Fleming left lasting legacy

I hear from you readers when you see something that doesn't make sense in the paper.

Grammatical errors, typos, missing first names, missing answers to questions and the like ruin your experience. Trust me, those responsible for what's on the page you are reading feel worse. We try to catch everything but the world is imperfect. We prove our imperfection in print and you, rightfully, point out that out when you say you expect better.

You hardly could have known this but you had to get in line behind Phyllis Fleming to lodge your complaint. Phyllis, a former deputy managing editor of The Gazette before bringing her 45-year career at the paper to an end by retiring in 2002, was a stickler for details. She understood the tight demands reporters and editors face when trying to create thorough, perfect stories in an amount of time that would make most people's heads spin off.

She understood even more, however, how little that should matter to readers who depend on a newspaper. She never wavered from her belief that those readers' concerns were more important than cutting any corner on a story.

Phyllis' remarkably distinguishable voice was stilled when cancer took her life Friday night. Her loss is a huge personal one for people who knew her, but particularly for those who worked with her at The Gazette. She touched the lives of a lot of people trying to make a career out of this crazy business. Her fastidious message about a quality news story remains deeply embedded in this place.

Sure, we disappointed her too often. She'd let me know about it, even after retiring. Her post-retirement e-mail address came across my Outlook server in capital letters. But she enjoyed reading the paper. Otherwise, why send a note?

I was interviewed by a University of Iowa journalist writing an article about the Hall of Fame award the UI School of Journalism and Mass Communication gave Phyllis in late January. No one thought she'd be here in April, when the award was to be given, so the presentation was pushed up for her. A lot of former and current Gazette newsroom colleagues were there. The interviewer noted that I considered Phyllis to be a mentor. A few people around us chuckled, as did I. Look around this room, I told the interviewer. Finding someone who called Phyllis a mentor wouldn't be difficult at this particular moment, I said.

Phyllis dealt with death in the same stoical manner with which she dealt with journalism: Things are what they are so say it in the simplest terms possible. The last time I talked to her she was in hospice at St. Luke's Hospital. She didn't expect to be there long, she said, knowing full well how a person leaves hospice.

She hadn't gotten her Gazette that particular day. I went downstairs and bought one from the machine and took it back to her room. When I walked in she was struggling with a seemingly simple task, spitting water into an emesis basin, that little tub they give you in a hospital. I took the basin from her weakened hands and gave her a tissue to soak up a little spillage. I put the paper on her bed and left.

I didn't know it at the time but the last thing I ended up doing for Phyllis was delivering The Gazette. But this I know: While her voice has been stilled, the echoes have not. And we must heed them.