Legal Affairs reporter Alaine Griffin is taking a buyout and leaving the Hartford Courant. She has won numerous awards, and her coverage of the Cheshire home invasion and its aftermath will always stand out. Her FB post about the intertwining of her career and that of Josh Kovner, who just died, is heartbreaking:
“Josh left me once before. It was in the late 90s when he left the New Haven Register for a job at the Hartford Courant, just as I was leaving the suburban bureaus to report beside him in the city. Over a cup of coffee at Clark’s Dairy, he gave me numbers out of his Rolodex and told me he’d put in a good word for me with the New Haven cops.
We reunited years later when I followed him, John, Dave and Dom to the Courant where Josh and I would cover countless stories together and build a loyal friendship and journalism partnership that I wish for all of my newsroom colleagues.
So when I called him Monday to tell him that Friday would be my last day at the Courant, I told him I wasn’t sure how I could leave him after 20 years. He told me like before, we wouldn’t be apart for long. On Wednesday, unable to see him in the hospital because of the pandemic, I asked him in a text if there was anything I could do for him.
“Just be who you are,” he texted back.
I don’t have to leave Josh today. He left us all Thursday morning after suffering heart valve complications.
Please join me in wishing love and support to his family – Sharon, Kelly, Dan, Mila and Gianna.
