Remembering Brent Felgner

To me, Brent was the Quiet One. Partly because he sat next to Jay Blickstein, our talkative copy desk chief. But I soon came to realize that Brent was not so much quiet as thoughtful – something in short supply in a Tower of Babble age.

Brent liked to engage in long conversations about everything from the minutiae of campaign finance reform and special interest advertising to the prospects of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He knew a lot about most things. He worked late. He never complained. He was more than a copy editor. He was a content dissector. He asked the right questions. He had the curiosity of a reporter and the breadth of knowledge of a university professor.

He cared – also rare at a time of almost universal pathos in the cash-strapped media world.

Like Mike Malone, I too benefited from Brent’s penchant for exhaustive research. On my way out the door one evening, Brent and I got into a conversation about a story I was working on about the 2008 presidential campaign and the influence of special interest dollars in the post-Swift Boat era. It was one of those stories that sounded good on paper but required dozens of phone calls to people who mostly did not want to talk on the record.

When I came in the next morning there was a stack of printouts on my desk an inch thick. Brent had amassed a dossier of special interest groups with contact information and pertinent passages highlighted.

Last week, I was cleaning off my desk and I found that folder. I threw it away. Now wish I hadn’t.

I miss Brent. People like him – conscientious, caring, quietly making all of us better – are just so rare.

Brent had broad shoulders and a big heart.
I always felt heartened by the sight of him and Jay Blickstein on the copy desk with our deadlines looming -- a couple burly offensive tackles running interference for us mercurial reporters to score our beloved bylines.
As we went through a series of difficult management changes over the years that, among other things, threatened our immediate deadlines, Brent was always there to carry us over the line. I was always struck by his extraordinary dedication--we full-timers had to stick it out through the tough times, and he didn't. But there he was, seemingly the last to go home, sleeping a few hours, then showing up early the next day to help us get it done. Sometimes there was car trouble, or a delayed flight back from Florida that left him no time to sleep. Didn't matter, there Brent was.
More than once, I asked Brent where that kind of dedication to B&C came from. He'd smile and pause a moment, nod slightly, and tell me that he simply loved B&C. He loved the mag, and for whatever reason, I guess he loved the people too.
As PJ says, Brent was way, way more than a copy-editor. Before I ventured down to lower Manhattan to cover a bankruptcy hearing a few months ago, he armed me with reams of corporate filings, and he'd highlighted the vital facts buried in mounds of 10K-speak. I felt as well prepared as the corporate lawyers in attendance. Instead of simply editing some breaking news copy just before the issue was to close, he'd flag a quote that he felt didn't quite say anything, or a lede that didn't properly hook the reader. It's the last thing you want to hear at 5 p.m. on a Friday, but Brent was right, simply wanted to make B&C better, and wasn't about to bite his tongue.
After witnessing firsthand his unparalleled dedication to B&C the past five or so years, I can only imagine what sort of love and dedication he gave his family--his dad in Florida, his wife Desi, who more than once jumped in front of a computer late on a Friday to help Brent--and us--finish our issue.
Through all the trying, stressful times in our engine room, I never heard Brent complain. I suspect he was just as stoic to the very end.
I'll miss him dearly -- as a co-worker, and as a friend.

Brent was the kind of copy editor who used to argue with me not just about commas and periods but the bigger issues. Why are we running this? Why is this quote in the story? (Or not). When I'd fend off his arguments, he'd relent. "All right, if that's the way you want to do it," he'd more or less sigh. Usually about a minute later, he'd lean back into my office and ask, with his head and voice lowered, "Are you sure?"
Believe it or not, editors love this stuff. You begin to learn in this business that the people who are asking good questions have good minds. Unless they're sick, nobody is a pain in the ass for the fun of it. Brent could be a pain, but he laughed the loudest, and often added the last cherry-on-the-top joke. I loved the guy, and he loved the people he worked with, and I'm not just saying this, he loved B&C. If you were with Brent, he was with you. He loved his wife, his son, his dad and his dog. And the news.
His concern was immediate and quiet. He fixed things. There are some technical copy desk tricks that, for awhile at one point, only Brent had the time and patience to do. Sometimes he did this complicated computer coding from Florida, while he was visiting and taking care of his aging father.
Brent was not the only guy around B&C who liked to hear himself talk. He was, however, one of a handful of people whose comments were usually trenchant, crucial, hilarous or all of the above.
He'll be missed. I wish I could be there when Jay Blickstein, the copy chief and Brent's boss and friend, lifts his glass this Friday after deadline to toast a marvelous, brilliant guy who had a lot more good ideas than there were places to put them. God bless you, Brent. Thanks for being there for me and many others.

When I started at B&C as Copy Desk Chief in September 2007, Brent helped show me the idiosyncrasies involved in getting the magazine out the door every week. As I gradually figured out what was going on, Brent's involvement slowly diminished until eventually I was flying solo. But he was always available to help me over the rough spots -- and there have been more than a few of those.
The two things I remember most about Brent were his unflappable nature (well, most of the time) and his willingness to work ridiculous hours to get the job done. We ate late-night dinners out of aluminum-foil plates countless times, usually spiced by his musings on the never-ending corruption in corporate finance and New Jersey politics.
Brent, you have left us way too soon, and it's just unremittingly unfair. My heart goes out to Desi, one of the nicest people I have ever met, and to your son, whom I never had the privilege of meeting.
And just remember, Brent, it's much better up there -- a lot fewer idiots.