Fred Rogers was a square when square was a real insult and a man who preferred to deflect the spotlight in order that it might shine on those around him.
  He was so nice as to appear suspicious and forgiving in an age when fewer forgave.
  But damned if we won't miss him most of all.
   Year 2003 was one of high tribute and mourning for the passing of a number of gifted media figures--writers, actors, newscasters, comedians, executives--their contributions all duly noted.
  But we also saw the passing of Rogers, whose contributions were no less grand, if less appreciated. He was a man who died as he lived, quietly, with grace and without melodrama.
   The host of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” taught millions of pint-sized public TV viewers to distinguish right from wrong and work clothes from play clothes.
  Rogers died of stomach cancer on Feb. 27, less than a month before his 75th birthday and two years after retiring. For 30 years the ordained Presbyterian minister journeyed to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe with millions of kids in tow.
   Perhaps more than anyone else who died last year, Fred Rogers symbolizes what good television once was against what television has become, and that brings all the more sadness to his leaving.
   Here’s a chronological look at some of the other influential media people who died last year.

Michael Kelly, 46
    Kelly was a distinguished writer and editor, but he was first a reporter, and he died as one. Kelly, editor of the Atlantic and a former New Republic editor, became the war in Iraq's first American casualty, dying there a decade after covering the first Gulf war. That reporting brought him national attention and led to his highly regarded book “Martyr’s Day.”
   Kelly died April 3 when the Humvee he was riding in flipped into a ditch. Over the prior decade, Kelly had held down a number of jobs in addition to his posts at the Atlantic and New Republic, writing for the New Yorker, churning out columns for The Washington Post, and serving as editor of the National Journal.

David Bloom, 39
  Three days after Kelly’s death, Bloom became the second American journalist to lose his life in Iraq, dying of a pulmonary embolism--a blood clot in his leg brought on by too much time spent crouching in the Bloommobile, a special tank from which he reported on the war for NBC News.
   Bloom, the co-host of “Weekend Today,” had requested the Iraq assignment, leaving behind a wife and three young daughters. He died just outside of Baghdad on April 6.

David Brinkley, 82
   With longtime on-air partner Chet Huntley, Brinkley told of and spoke to a changing America for NBC News during the 60s and 70s, delivering his stories, good and bad, in the plainest of words and always with a certain touch of irony and distance. He was an old-school anchor who saw himself first as a journalist bound to tell the truth as he saw it. He was honest to a fault, which got him in trouble when he later moved to ABC and referred to President Clinton as “a bore” during 1996 election coverage.
  By the time he retired in 1996, after revolutionizing Sunday morning news shows with “This Week With David Brinkley,” the acerbic North Carolinian had 53 years of newscasting behind him, 10 Emmys and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  Brinkley died June 11 of complications from a fall.

Donna Salvatore, 50
   One of the most prominent women in media, Salvatore was known for her toughness at the negotiating table, and that accounted for her eventual rise to CEO of MediaVest. Salvatore died after suffering an aneurysm following an exercise class June 20.
   Salvatore had stepped down as CEO earlier in the year to spend more time with her family, becoming the firm’s chief investment officer. Salvatore began her career at N.W. Ayer in 1978. After stints with Compton Advertising and Needham Harper & Steers, in 1981 she joined Benton & Bowles, which became D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles four years later and eventually morphed into MediaVest. Before becoming CEO, Salvatore served as director of strategic development and president of broadcast.


 Bernie Goldhirsh, 63 
  In an age of increasingly corporate publishing, Goldhirsh was one of the great, and among the last, true independents, with a wont for launching magazines as much out of personal curiosity as anything. Over the years he founded Inc., Sail and High Technology magazines.
   He launched Inc., the most successful of his titles, in 1979 as a publication for small business owners, and shortly after sold his first title, Sail, to Meredith. In 1986, he bought the failing Dun’s Review and renamed it Business Month as a companion title to Inc., folding it in 1990.
   Three years ago, Goldhirsh sold Inc. to Gruner + Jahr for $200 million.
  He died of a brain tumor June 29. 
  
Bob Hope, 100
   Through countless USO tours, TV specials and “Road” movies, Hope kept America doubled with laughter. A performer to the last, he died of pneumonia on July 27, days after his final special aired.
   Hope was an NBC Radio star before launching his successful TV career, earning a then-record $2 million contract in 1952.

John Ritter, 54
   Surely the most shocking death of the year, and the one that had media people talking the most, was John Ritter’s Sept. 11 passing from an until-then unrecognized heart defect. 
  The star of ABC’s “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” was filming scenes for the show’s fourth episode of the new season when he fell ill.
   He died hours later, prompting TV specials, public mourning and a surprising decision by ABC to keep the show going and write the death into the script.
   So far ABC’s gamble has worked, with the second-year show earning record ratings for the Ritter death episode and keeping a respectable audience as the program continues. It is believed to be the first time the death of a show’s lead has been successfully written into the script of a broadcast show.

George Plimpton, 76
    Plimpton based a career on knowing his limitations, pushing past them, and writing about his experiences to hilarious effect. As a Sports Illustrated contributor and book author, he jumped in the boxing ring with Archie Moore, tried to strike out Willie Mays, and attended training camp with the Detroit Lions.
   A gifted athlete he was not, but he was a magnificent writer. He was also an appreciator and encourager of promising writers, which explains his long association with the Paris Review, a journal founded a half-century ago to showcase new writing talents. Though never a financial success--Plimpton seemed to run it out of his back pocket--the magazine celebrated its 50th birthday just days after Plimpton’s death on Sept. 25, scrambling as ever to stay afloat but with a rich history behind it of literary firsts and great finds. 

 Courtney Quintin, 37
   Quintin, a former media planner for Initiative and later a broadcast media manager for Twenty-First Century Insurance, was murdered in late September, allegedly by her longtime boyfriend.
    Though police released few details, and refused to talk to Media Life about the case in a follow-up call last month, those that did emerge were horrific. On Sept. 29 at her Burbank, Calif., home, Quintin’s bound body was found near a pillow with a bullet hole through it.
   Ray Pascual, her boyfriend, was arrested and bail was set at $2 million. The couple had been together for eight years, during which Pascual, a security guard, had been suspected of prior domestic abuse and more recently, been accused of posing as a police officer.

   Other notable media deaths of 2003:

Charles Barile (publicist, UPN) 49
Robert Bartley (former editorial page editor, Wall Street Journal) 66
Kevin Belden (integrated marketing executive director, Conde Nast) 40
Fred Berry (actor, “What’s Happening!”) 52
Art Carney (actor, “The Honeymooners) 85
Nell Carter (actress, “Gimme A Break”) 54
Richard Crenna (actor, “Judging Amy”) 76
Joe Connelly (co-creator, “Leave It To Beaver”) 85
Charles Douglass (inventor, TV laugh track) 93
Buddy Ebsen (actor, “The Beverly Hillbillies”) 95
Douglas Fang (COO, San Francisco Examiner) 38
 Andrew Heiskell (former chairman, Time Inc.) 87
Gregory Hines (dancer/actor, “The Gregory Hines Show”) 57
Al Hirschfeld (cartoonist) 99
 Eddie Jaffe (press agent) 89
 Stacy Keach Sr. (actor, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”) 88
Donald A. Macdonald (former vice chairman, Dow Jones) 83
Kevin McDonald (publicist, CBS) 56
Linda Mancuso (SVP programming, ABC Family) 44
Will McDonough (sports columnist, Boston Globe) 67
Sarah McClendon (White House reporter) 92
Sydney Omarr (astrologist) 76
Sarah Pettit (co-founder, Out magazine) 36
 Rod Roddy (announcer, “The Price Is Right”) 66
 John Lewis Selover (publisher, Christian Science Monitor)
 Robert Stack (actor/host, “Unsolved Mysteries”) 84
Paul Stojanovich (producer, “COPS”) 47
Gail Sullivan (head, ABC Daytime sales)
 Laurence Tisch (former CEO, CBS) 80
 Lynne Thigpen (actress, “The District”) 54
 Hal Walker (former reporter, CBS) 70
 Ethel Winant (former executive, CBS) 81
 Thomas H. Wyman (former chairman, CBS) 73