Connell had a “magnetic pull” with kids he’d get down on their level and “be extremely present in whatever they were doing,” said his son.Ĭonnell was good at leaving his work behind when he got home, his son said, and being with his family. He’d grab an empty paper towel roll and pretend it was a telescope, or make up elaborate stories for his grandchildren. He was devoted to his two young grandchildren. “No one came back,” said Suraci, who sent out a “scathing” note to the staff the next day.Ĭonnell married Millie Hernandez in 1977 and the couple settled in Lakewood, where they lived for the last 37 years. He sent an assistant city editor to the bar to retrieve the reporters, but that editor instead started drinking too. “Do as I would do,” Connell told them - a line that would be repeated by his colleagues for years.īack at the near-empty office, the Breeze’s city editor Frank Suraci worried he wouldn’t be able to get out the next day’s paper. The reporters turned to Connell for advice on whether they should return to the newsroom. One beer led to another and the group ended up drinking for several hours. Paddy’s Day Massacre,” Connell - then at the Daily Breeze - once took the newsroom out for lunch at Hennessey’s Tavern, an Irish pub in Redondo Beach, on St. In what reporters would later call the “St. If Connell could be a tough editor, he also had a playful side. “He wanted it to be the best it could be,” former Times reporter Catherine Saillant said. “He was so supportive, coaching me on how to conduct difficult interviews and how to stand my ground when an official questioned our reporting,” Linthicum said.Ĭonnell’s reporters could also face long nights and exacting edits as Connell liked to tinker with their copy until it was just right. Times reporter Kate Linthicum, who formerly covered City Hall and now is a correspondent in The Times’ Mexico City bureau, recalled Connell’s help on a story about problems with the city’s 911 system. A former local government reporter, Connell liked to talk through stories with reporters and was excited when they brought him unusual pitches. In 2011, Connell moved to the Metro editing staff as chief of The Times’ City-County bureau. He was truly a marvel, a gift to readers and to his editors.” He got to the bottom of whatever he pursued. He simply could not be brushed aside or intimidated. Sappell, the former Times staffer, said that Connell “could penetrate bureaucracies better than any reporter I ever worked with. Tall and square-shouldered, Connell could be an imposing figure when demanding information. He was also part of a team that won a 1997 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting for a series that scrutinized large contributions to the Democratic Party by influential Asian donors. “He was thinking, how can we tell this story?”Ĭonnell won awards for his investigative, multimedia and feature work, including two Investigative Reporters & Editors medals. “This was early on and no one was shooting video,” Lopez said. Connell ended up shooting hours of video for the story, Lopez said, footage that was more powerful than anything that they could write. The concierge returned 15 minutes later with a camera for rent. The pair were in a hotel bar the night before a planned visit to a prison to interview gang members when Connell had the idea of using a video recorder for their story.Ĭonnell went to the lobby of the hotel, carrying a wad of bills. Times reporter Robert Lopez, who worked with Connell on many investigative pieces, recalled Connell’s resourcefulness when they traveled to El Salvador around 2005 to investigate MS-13. City Hall corruption and the City of Industry’s governance. Later, as an investigative reporter, he dug into stories about California’s energy market, the 9/11 attacks, the state’s planned high-speed rail, L.A. He joined The Times in 1982 as an education and local government reporter.
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