Losing Evelyn Lee

NJBIZ STAFF//July 22, 2011//

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I’d dress in black today, if it wasn’t going to be so darn hot.

You see, I’ll be in a sort of mourning because July 22 will be Evelyn Lee‘s last day at NJBIZ. Our stellar real estate reporter has accepted a job with PEI Media in Manhattan.

Evelyn has been the definition of dedication during her five years at NJBIZ, often logging the longest hours in our office before driving an hour to get home. The lure of the work kept her at it, and Evelyn became the NJBIZ reporter with the deepest knowledge of her beat. She is also one of the best-sourced reporters in our newsroom, saving more than a few Grapevine columns that had seemed destined to publish with a few inches of blank space.

Evelyn can come across as quiet because she knows that sometimes a reporter’s best skill is the ability to shut up and listen. Anyone who has thought of Evelyn as shy has never heard her after she felt like she had been burned by a source (she saved those conversations for me or Managing Editor Joe St. Arney). And really there’s no way to describe the non-shy zeal with which Evelyn embraced her role as a cheerleader for Team John Stamos at our recent company picnic.

Evelyn said to me once she would never go into public relations and always stay in journalism. She said it in the same determined way (with a dismissive shake of her head on the public relations part), as I had seen whenever she was tracking a difficult to get news item. I had to marvel at that, and still do, because being a journalist has its downsides. Long hours, pay freezes, friends furloughed if not laid off (although, luckily, not at NJBIZ), people yelling that they’ll never speak to you again if you don’t put them on the NJBIZ Power 50 Real Estate list.

But Evelyn gets it. About what makes this job fascinating, fun and fulfilling. About why the pros outweigh the cons. About all the reasons to stay and never go into public relations.

And Evelyn demonstrated that every day at NJBIZ.