Salisbury Independent Editor Greg Bassett dies
By Andrew WestEditor's note: The time of the celebration has been changed to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16.
SALISBURY — Greg Bassett, the founding editor of the Salisbury Independent and a dedicated Maryland newspaperman for nearly four decades, died Saturday. He was 63.
Mr. Bassett, who had a long newspaper career with the Daily Times in Salisbury, joined forces with Independent in 2014 to launch the weekly newspaper.
He was well known for his passion for community journalism and his hometown of Salisbury. His self-deprecating sense of humor was ever-present.
“In October 1960, I was born in Peninsula General Hospital on South Division Street in Salisbury,” wrote Mr. Bassett in the first edition of the Salisbury Independent.
“In October 1999, I was named managing editor of The Daily Times. From my new office, across from Peninsula Regional Medical Center, I could look out and see the window of the hospital room where I was born.
“In the span of 39 years, my life had managed to cross just a city street.”
Mike Dunn, president and CEO of the Greater Salisbury Committee, said the community is overwhelmed with sadness and shock.
“The community is gut-punched,” said Mr. Dunn. “It’s devastating and it’s quite extraordinary. The part that is extraordinary is that Bassett would reject the notion that anyone would have these feelings about him.
“I wish Greg could just drop in right now — from wherever he is, wherever that afterlife is — and just spend 30 minutes to look at social media,” said Mr. Dunn. “He would just be astonished, and literally blown away by all of this.”
The remembrances offer testimony to Mr. Bassett’s work as a journalist, as a mentor, as a friend, as a champion of progress in Salisbury — and, most important to him, as a father.
Mr. Bassett’s pride and joy were his children, Will and Annie.
“As much as he loved what he did and as much as he was a newspaperman to his core, it was the love of his two children that kept him alive and kept him flourishing,” said Mr. Dunn. “His kids were most important in his life.”
Mr. Bassett’s former wife, Cathy, shared news of his death Sunday on Facebook.
“My heart is breaking for my children tonight as they have lost their father. He loved his kids more than anything else, and they knew that,” she wrote. “Greg was an amazing journalist, and loved the craft more than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“He touched a lot of lives, and I know in the coming days the stories of Greg will no doubt fill his kids with pride as they learn more about the man they called dad.”
Reporters and photographers have been among those sharing heartfelt condolences. Countless numbers of journalists have been on thousands of deadlines with him.
“There aren’t enough words here or enough pages in the next edition of the newspaper to capture the sadness and devastation for those who knew Greg Bassett, a giant of a newspaperman,” wrote Tracy Sahler, a reporter who worked in Mr. Bassett’s Daily Times newsroom. “The memories, stories and appreciations from those for whom he was a fixture of life in our community would overflow all of the available column inches.
“Those of us lucky enough to interact with him over the decades know how much has just been lost. Our hearts hurt for his children. Yet the loss will also be acutely felt by those who didn’t even know him, but counted on the work he did. Thanks for everything you gave, Greg. You gave everything, and we will miss you.”
It was at the Daily Times in Salisbury that the ink truly crept into his blood.
He often talked about the lively Daily Times newsroom of the 1980s when Mel Toadvine and Rick Cullen were there.
Mr. Dunn said it was there, perhaps, that he really became a champion of Salisbury.
“You’re part of the team and that team is Salisbury,” he said. “Over time, it just sort of seeps into you. Once you’re in it, you want your community to do well and he was just so passionate about it.”
Mr. Bassett perhaps will be seen as one of the last of his kind.
“It’s like we lost our encyclopedia,” said Mr. Dunn. “I know we don’t make encyclopedias anymore and we don’t make Greg Bassetts anymore.”
Mr. Bassett, since his days at Wicomico High School and then the University of Maryland, developed a talent for reporting and community service.
“Serving as editor of my hometown newspaper was the fulfillment of my lifetime ambition,” he said in his first column with the Independent. “I believed then, as I do now, the value of sharing important news events, telling the people stories that make any town unique, helping to identify community problems and in offering a forum where readers and citizens can suggest and weigh solutions.”
His style of community journalism served Salisbury well.
Following Gannett Company’s organizational changes in 2013 amidst changing times in the industry, he parted ways with the Daily Times. Mr. Bassett never gave up on his commitment to serve readers in Salisbury.
“People who operate small newspapers do so because they love what they do,” he wrote. “They know they matter. They believe with all their heart that their readers and the causes of the local community matter.”
In 2021, the Salisbury Independent won its fifth Public Service award from the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association. The last was given for coverage of the water main extension to Salisbury-Wicomico Regional Airport, an issue that had confounded the community for several months and about which a plethora of erroneous information was being exchanged.
In its coverage, Salisbury Independent engaged in purely factual reporting, which helped to ease public concerns and allow the project to proceed.
At the time of his death, Mr. Bassett was managing editor of INI’s Maryland publications, which included the Salisbury Independent, Dorchester Banner and the Crisfield-Somerset County Times, as well as BaytoBayNews.com.
For the Independent, he performed scores of tasks — writing stories and headlines, editing submissions, connecting with freelance writers and photographers, designing pages and more. In many ways, he was a throwback to the days of country newspaper editors who needed to know how to do it all.
In addition to all that, he hosted a popular “One on One” talk show on PAC 14. “There was not a community mover/shaker/newsmaker who failed to make an appearance on that show,” said Mr. Dunn.
His newspaper career in Salisbury dates back to 1980s when he joined the Daily Times as a reporter. He later became the paper’s editorial page and front page editor before leaving Salisbury for an assistant news editor role with Thomson Newspapers’ Washington bureau.
He worked for The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland, as an assistant city editor for two years before returning to Salisbury in 1999 to take the job of managing editor, leading the Daily Times newsroom.
He was named executive editor of the Daily Times and later group editor after the Gannett Company bought the newspaper and related titles on Delmarva in 2000.
A celebration of life will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16, at Green Hill Country Club in Quantico.
The Greater Salisbury Committee has established an endowment at the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, in Greg’s memory, and to honor his legacy to his community.
In lieu of flowers, send contributions to the Greg Bassett Memorial Fund (payable to CFES with Greg Bassett in memo), 1324 Belmont Ave Suite 401, Salisbury MD 21804.
