I never wanted to be a writer. I was an information designer. Becoming a columnist, like so many things in my career, was a bit of a fluke.
As I end this column, I’d like to share the strange way that it began.
After many years in The Times’s newsroom as a graphics editor and later the graphics director, then a short stint at National Geographic, I came back to The Times: I had met the executive editor for lunch. He convinced me to return to the paper. I told him that I would like to produce charts for Opinion.
When I met with Andy Rosenthal, then the editorial page editor and head of Opinion, he suggested that I write 400-word introductions for the charts, even though I wasn’t a writer. He demurred on the title I proposed, Op-Chartist, as too complicated, and told me I would just be called a columnist.
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