Matt Driscoll made me a better writer. We could learn a lot from the example he set | Opinion

Matt Driscoll, my editor, who died last month, left us with an example of how to navigate these politically toxic times.

His openness to perspectives different from his own, rekindled in me an ember of hope that the center might yet hold, and that those of us in it might yet find a common pathway forward.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Matt called asking if I’d be interested in writing a column every month or so for the Tribune.

He said he wanted a conservative voice on the paper’s opinion page. I chuckled and told him this Republican Party didn’t consider me a conservative — not that I consider Donald Trump a conservative. I demurred, reminding Matt that while I’m fiscally conservative, I’m socially liberal, pro-environment, and that if he wanted someone to present a far-right, crazy, populist view, I’d disappoint him.

Matt chuckled. He was not looking for that.

In the following months working with him, I learned Matt was a damn fine editor. While he could be specific — as in “Bill, this isn’t actually a sentence,” or “I don’t know what this word means,” or “Don’t start your sentence with numbers” — more often he’d tell me he liked my draft and knew he’d like it even more after I’d cut a few hundred words. Then he’d suggest where my argument was “unnecessarily weedy,” lost its way, or beat a horse I’d already killed — metaphorically, not in a Kristi Noem sort of way. My writing appeared stronger on these pages because of Matt’s craft.

Just as impressive as his craft was his abiding commitment to community and his profound understanding of what his neighbors and readers cared about.

Homelessness was an issue Tribune readers cared about as much as the two of us, and while we both were passionate about finding solutions that lifted people off the streets, we didn’t always agree on which solutions to support. That did not dissuade him from encouraging me to keep writing on the subject. He’s the one who nudged me to write about the state discouraging camping along freeways by dumping boulders in the right-of-way.

Since clearing encampments was a topic important to Matt, he scrutinized that draft, asked questions and requested edits. Looking back over my notes, I accepted nearly every one of his revisions but pushed back on a few. Matt considered my arguments as forcefully as he made his.

A few days after the column ran, he wrote, “Great column, you hit the sweet spot.” I still remember smiling when I read that, not out of pride, but because our collaboration created a piece that struck a nerve.

I didn’t always write about issues Matt suggested.

He gave me license to write about issues that mattered to me, even when he was unsure what I was writing about mattered to Tribune readers.

That is how my column opposing logging along the Elwha River was able to be read by thousands of people.

A few days after that column was printed, I asked how it had been received. He responded, “your most-read piece to date, which ain’t bad for a piece with an environmental bent — which can be tough.”

A few weeks later the state canceled that logging contract. Matt immediately suggested I write a follow-up piece. I will miss that collaboration.

But what I will remember and hope we all remember when we think of Matt is that he was a man whose intellectual curiosity surpassed his certainty, who listened to opposing views and welcomed them into an arena of ideas.

There are many ways Matt can and should be honored, but among them is to reject the toxicity and polarization of today’s politics, and instead open ourselves to perspectives different from our own and engage in a give-and-take that’s focused on creating something good rather than on winning the argument.