The presses stop: That’s all, folks!

One of the longest running traditions in journalism is that you work — and work hard — on your first day and on your last. A few slack off in the middle, but not many, and certainly not me.

I sat in on nearly 20 hours of grueling endorsement interviews in 2009 a week before I officially became editor. Today I sit pounding out a column on a company-owned laptop in the hours before human resources takes both it and my Los Angeles Times ID card away. (I suppose that’s the journalism equivalent of “turning in your gun and badge.”)

I am the sentimental sort, prone to fits of melancholy, but I don’t feel that today. Instead, thinking back on my time here fills me with happiness and gratitude. I believe we served the communities of Glendale, La Crescenta, Burbank and La Cañada honestly, transparently and faithfully. Moreover, I believe the papers will continue to flourish under John Canalis.

John will be overseeing all seven Times Community News titles in both Los Angeles and Orange counties. He’s not only inheriting our communities, but the laptop I’m writing on presently. (I’ll clean off the dust and coffee drippings first.)

So, on my last day of work here, I want to revisit my first column, written a few weeks after I started. In that April 15, 2009 piece, I promised to do a number of things. Paraphrased but slightly, here’s what I wrote:

- I promise to make the Leader, News-Press and Valley Sun indispensable sources of information;

- I promise to be transparent about the newsgathering process and to hold myself and my staff to the highest level of professional ethics;

- I promise to reach out to the community as a whole, not just to city officials and power brokers but also to people who have not often had a voice in these pages; and

- I promise to make the papers’ websites more informative and easier to use.

I believe we have accomplished all of these and more. Did we make mistakes? Of course, but we admitted them and learned from them. Looking back at my columns over the years, I was surprised to see how many that spoke to newsroom issues. That is, how we covered what we did, why we decided to do so, and our thought process regarding sensitive or ethically challenging stories.

I did this in part because I felt readers would trust the paper more if they better understood the “why” as much as the “what.” This also led to me reaching out to hundreds of people over the years to ask them how they thought we were doing our job. This, in turn, led to community advisory boards, empowering residents to create real and positive change for the papers.

I also focused considerable attention on our websites, digging them out of their glorified bulletin-board stage into something truly worthy of attention. Traffic has gone up more than tenfold, and the websites have won statewide awards every year since. Heck, we even got a national award in 2012.

Before I break my arm patting myself on the back, though, I want to make it clear that none of this would have been possible without a dedicated, involved and wonderful community to chronicle and serve. I was welcomed from my first day on.

I also want to give a special thanks to the dozens of writers, reporters and editors I have worked with over the years, and the 20 who remain. Without their skills and true passion for the craft and our cities, the paper would have been much less.

I have been blessed and honored to work with so many of you. I know this is not goodbye, but only goodbye for now. Thank you, as always, for reading.

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DAN EVANS is no longer the editor. He can now be reached at daniel.j.evans@mac.com.