![]() He called people by their first name, even as a young man speaking with older politicians and businessmen. Neill was seemingly born with confidence. He was so persistent about the need for change, Neill said, “I thought he was in my bed at night, whispering in my ear.” A Love of Print It wasn’t from a lack of effort on van Halsema’s part. “We were certainly a year or two or three behind because I didn’t understand it, didn’t have any interest in it.” “I regret being really a dumbo about the internet,” Neill said. Some of Neill’s comments about his community were included in the documentary Making Modern Charlotte, which aired on PBS in 2019, but his statements about journalism from that nearly 2-hour interview have not been previously reported. “I regret being really a dumbo about the internet.” Rolfe Neill He was proud of the role he and the Observer played in building the city.īut in a revealing interview in 2016 with American City Business Journals, Neill talked about what he viewed as his biggest shortcoming as publisher: not preparing his organization for the transition from print to digital. Neill was part of a small group of business leaders-which included bankers Hugh McColl and Ed Crutchfield and Duke Power CEO Bill Lee-who developed the vision for the uptown that thrives today. (Though in Charlotte, they call it “uptown.”) He was one of the most visible and influential figures as the city transformed itself from regional outpost to a thriving corporate headquarters with a prominent arts community and major league sports. Neill, who died recently at age 90, had the top job at the largest newspaper in North Carolina for 22 years, when the Observer was an economic powerhouse with wide reach, and he used it to promote a pro-downtown agenda. “You were right,” Neill told van Halsema. Van Halsema, who as director of news systems was the top digital person in the Observer’s newsroom, had bent the publisher’s ear about the need to embrace technology to deliver news and information to customers in different ways. He remained in Charlotte, stayed active in the community, and from time to time ran into Dick van Halsema, who launched the Observer‘s website the year before Neill departed. Rolfe Neill retired as publisher of The Charlotte Observer in 1997 at the peak of his influence in the community, still dashing and charismatic.
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