Woodruff has been at the Missoulian since 1982, and began writing editorials full time in 1988.
“I've written more than 6,000 editorials since then, and I've been able to accomplish more than I ever dreamed possible in journalism,” Woodruff said Tuesday.
“The West is a rapidly changing place, and we've seen over the past 20 years or so all sorts of solutions proposed for our problems,” Woodruff said. “It's also pretty clear that some of what's been proposed doesn't work. Western Progress will be at the forefront of finding solutions that do work.”
Woodruff said the newspaper business has been nothing but good to him, but that he finally reached a point where he tired of being a spectator.
“In the newspaper business, you always have a front-row seat, but you're always in the gallery,” he said. “It's like being a kid with your nose pressed up next to the window of the candy store. It's time for me to go inside.”
Woodruff, who grew up in suburban Seattle, came to the Missoulian in 1982 after five years split between papers in Bend, Ore., and Yakima, Wash. Although he covered education in Yakima, he came to the Missoulian to be the paper's natural resources reporter, a topic dear to his heart. He'd spent a lot of time in his younger years in Montana because his mother is originally from here, and the chance to return felt like a gift.
“It really was my dream job,” he said.
Woodruff did pioneering reporting in the mid-1980s on the timber-cutting practices of Champion International Co. and Plum Creek Timber Co., using just-developed spreadsheet software to show that the companies were cutting their timber much faster than they were growing it.
“They were clearly in the process of cutting and running,” he said.
Woodruff also wrote about the contamination of well water in Milltown, water that was being poisoned by mining sediments piling up behind the Milltown Dam.
“It's very gratifying 25 years later to see that problem being resolved,” he said.
Early in his career here, Woodruff sat on the paper's editorial board, and he filled in for longtime editorial writer Sam Reynolds when Reynolds took an academic fellowship in 1986-1987. Woodruff thought that might be the end of his term as opinion page editor, but when Reynolds quit in January 1988, Woodruff stepped in to fill his considerable shoes.
“I think Sam Reynolds set the bar and raised it for what readers expect from the Missoulian's editorial page,” Woodruff said. “There's no way to overestimate what he meant to that page.”
Nearly 20 years later, Woodruff has turned out thousands of editorial pages for six different publishers and four editors.
“I've always seen myself more as a moderator of a big discussion about Montana, more so than just having an opinion about things,” he said. “I have lots of opinions, but at the paper, I've melded my opinions with editors and publishers so that the Missoulian can play a leadership role.”
Woodruff has worked through both the post-Watergate heyday of American journalism and a period when the profession is trying to find its way through the dizzying challenges posed by the Information Age.
“We used to have center stage, and now we're fighting for a space on the stage,” he said.
Still, newspapers are better situated than most other media to remain a force for dialogue in American communities, particularly smaller places like Missoula.
“We have a very informed readership here, and we have a unique ability to be one of the places that brings people together,” he said. “The paper is still the best tool for bringing the community to the discussion table.”
That said, Woodruff came to feel in recent months that it may be time for him to move on. Through discussions with former Congressman Pat Williams, he learned more about Western Progress and its plans for fostering new ways of thinking about a Western approach to problems such as water, growth, energy and climate change.
Then, last fall, Woodruff took a weeklong trip down the Missouri River with his aging Lab Wheatley. As the trip came to an end near the Fred Robinson Bridge, Woodruff felt a longing to stay on the river, maybe spend another day in camp just milling about.
But there was the bridge. The trip was over.
“When it came around to thinking about leaving the paper and going to Western Progress, that was really the context I found myself thinking about,” Woodruff said. “This journey is over. It's time to go.”
It's not as if Woodruff will disappear, however. If anything, he looks to be more involved in the civic affairs of the larger region called the West. Western Progress will have offices in Denver, Phoenix and Missoula, and plans to be a very visible participant in discussions of public policy, he said.
“For too long, progressive policy advocates here in the West had been asleep at the wheel,” Williams said. “Only recently have we seen the re-emergence of traditional Western progressive thought.
“The nation's attention is now focused, once again, on the Rocky Mountain West as the place of new ideas, solutions and advocacy. Western Progress is well-placed to help advance homegrown, Rocky Mountain solutions for the serious problems that face our region and our nation. This part of America has led the nation before, and we believe that the progressive ideas of the people of the Rocky Mountain West can do it again.
“We are more than pleased to have Steve Woodruff as an integral part of Western Progress. His quarter-century of experience at the Missoulian as a reporter and editor is a critical asset of our management team.”
For Woodruff, his new work will be a chance to step beyond the anonymous role of editorial writer.
“I am eager to dedicate my energy to things that are closer to my heart,” he said. “I feel blessed to have been a voice for the Missoulian, but I'm anxious for the new journey to start.”
Missoulian editor Sherry Devlin said the newspaper is conducting a nationwide search for Woodruff's replacement, and hopes to name a new opinion page editor early this summer.
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com.
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