Phil Devitt returns to hometown as Herald News city editor

FALL RIVER – You never forget your first story.

Phil Devitt remembers his. And the trepidation he felt as he handed it to his teacher, Harry Proudfoot, the guiding light of the journalism program at Westport High School.

“It was about a small presentation the library was hosting,” Devitt said. “I brought it back and was immediately criticized for it.

“Mr. Proudfoot said my lede just laid there like a dead fish. He said it with love, but you don’t forget a thing like that.” (The lede is the first paragraph of a story.)

Devitt didn’t forget. He spent a decade locally, making stories big and small interesting and lively.

And now he will work that magic in his hometown. Devitt became the new digital city editor at the Herald News on Tuesday.

Devitt was the first baby born in Fall River in 1987. His parents, Elizabeth and Mark Devitt, moved the family to Westport five years later. They have all since returned to Fall River except for Phil’s sister, Amanda Devitt, who now calls Chicago home.

“Our family always subscribed to the Herald News,” Devitt said. “The paper was always on the coffee table.

“It really is how I got interested in journalism. I still get excited about the idea of a group of people who care enough about the community I live in to spend their days and nights writing about it.”

That is how Devitt landed the job, said Lynne Sullivan, the regional executive editor who leads the news team at the Herald News: He knows and loves the area.

“His is such a critical role,” Sullivan said. “He deals with the public, with officials, with story assignments. He knows Fall River and he understands this area.

“From his work with the weeklies, he has a lot of contacts in this area, in Fall River and in the towns. He can really help us.”

Devitt began his career in journalism at The Villager, the newspaper of Westport High School. He was the editor The Hawk, the newspaper at Roger Williams University.

He started at the New Bedford Standard Times, working as a freelance writer, even before he graduated from Roger Williams University in 2009.

He was the editor of the Fall River Spirit from 2009 to 2015, took on responsibility of the Chronicle in Dartmouth and Westport in 2014 and, in 2015, was named editor of all the weekly papers published locally by Hathaway Publications.

As digital city editor, Devitt said, he is down to one job.

That one job will be largely guided by the words of his neighbors and friends, he added.

“People need to be at the heart of everything we do,” he said. “I always look for the human connection in stories. It is easy to become detached and buried under data and all those details that don’t necessarily resonate with you.

“I want our readers to come away from every story knowing why the story should matter to them and people they care about. We accomplish that, in the newsroom, by keeping people in mind at all times.”

That, he said, will be the antidote to accusations of fake news. It will also keep the business alive as newspapers transition from primarily a printed product to a new life online.

“It comes down to a small group of people working hard to do the best they can to tell the truth,” he said. “There is no agenda other than that.”

Devitt can be reached at 508-676-2532 or pdevitt@heraldnews.com.

Email Kevin P. O’Connor at koconnor@heraldnews.com.