Happy birthday, Darryl Fears!
(Sept. 18, 2024)
In December, Darryl, climate and environmental reporter at The Washington Post and 2023 Nieman Fellow, told his Facebook followers that he had joined others in accepting a buyout < https://bit.ly/3TwPK3K > and was ending his 24-year run at the Post:
“After I signed the [voluntary separation package] a week ago today, the sun rose and the sky was a brilliant blue. During the weeklong grace period that allowed me to change my mind, I felt a weight lifting and a feeling that gravity was giving way. Close friends and colleagues who also asked for eligibility before accepting said they felt it too, feeling that gravity was giving way.
“What’s next? Well, I’m definitely not ready to retire. I’m going to pause and commit to myself and the people I love. I have the luxury to sit with myself and identify what truly inspires me. And then I will pursue that. Yes, I have an agent. Yes, I’ve had job offers. As far as I’m concerned, I already have a new job — maintenance worker, and I am the project. When the next door eventually opens, I’ll be more than ready to walk through it.”
Since then, Darryl has posted photos of himself swimming with sea turtles and otherwise enjoying life. “I am walking boldly into 2024 and all of its wonderful possibilities,” he wrote on New Year’s day.
In a previous birthday greeting, Darryl discussed the importance of environmental journalists of color and reporting on environmental justice. < https://tinyurl.com/msdyjxvy > At a Journal-isms Roundtable, Darryl explained the work that went into his Pulitzer-cited stories at our session with 2022 Pulitzer winners and finalists. < https://bit.ly/3a1jiTd >
Here he is with fellow veteran journalist Cynthia Tucker, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution alum now at the University of South Alabama. < https://bit.ly/3Xx761L >
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Update: Darryl posted this thank you on his Facebook timeline:
Thank you, every one of you, for lifting me up with your birthday wishes. They’re greatly appreciated. It’ll take some time but I’ll eventually stamp each with a like. Think of it as dap or a firm hug.
It’s been quite a year, one that I could never have imagined. After a fellowship ended in 2023, during a July vacation in Hawaii, I looked out over the Pacific and wondered what would happen next in my life. The answer came swift. Less than two months later, my company offered an employee buyout. I wasn’t eligible to take it at first — they wanted me to stay, but the offer was so generous and potentially beneficial for me that I requested an opportunity to at least consider it. Ultimately I accepted and that’s how my 25 years at The Washington Post ended.
A numerologist would say that, due to the numbers in my age, I was fittingly in a nine year, the number that represents completion. Today I entered a one year, the number for beginning. I’ve spent the past nine months working on me: de-stressing, researching for a book, improving my health and fitness level, traveling, reconnecting with family, doing the husband thing. (I’m also a marked man; I got my first half sleeve tattoo.) Now, once again, I’m looking out over an ocean of possibilities. Whatever comes next, I feel I’m more than ready for it.