'Everything seems sort of wide open': Veteran journalists retire from Windsor Star

Brian Cross and Anne Jarvis are retiring from the Windsor Star after more than 30 years in Windsor, Ont., on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. Michelle Maluske/CTV Windsor.

Columnist Anne Jarvis and reporter Brian Cross have written their final articles after more than 30 years at the Windsor Star.

What many people don’t know, is the journalists are also married, with three children.

“We’ve worked together almost our entire career,” says Cross, 60.

The couple met in the newsroom of a small weekly newspaper in Paris, Ont., before Jarvis took a job in Brantford and Cross went to Cambridge.

“There was four or five years where we were apart,” says Cross.

Jarvis, 59, says she was drawn to Windsor to work at The Star in 1990 because it was a “bigger and better paper.”

Cross was hired by the newspaper six months later and the rest, as they say, is history.

“A lot of news comes out of Windsor. It’s a fascinating city to cover,” says Jarvis.

Over the years, Jarvis and Cross covered various “beats” in the city; everything from health to education and all points in-between. They have both covered off other jobs within the newspaper, such as assigning stories and editorializing.

They say they are grateful to the newspaper for the “terrific privilege” of job-sharing, when they decided to have children.

“There was no sort of, template for it,” says Cross. “It was sort of figured out, ‘okay we’ll call it a rotating leave.’ So we just went on leave roughly six months of the year.”

“And I would work six months and he would be home with the kids and then we would just switch,” says Jarvis. “It was fantastic for us. We didn’t have to have daycare.”

Both returned to full-time work once their kids, a daughter and twin boys, were more independent.

Living and working together has been good for their family, says Cross.

“We talk shop a lot. We talk a lot of issues around the dinner table,” says Cross. “I think our kids are very well informed.”

Jarvis moved from news reporting to be the newspaper columnist in 2009.

“The writing style is a lot different. You know, it’s less constricted,” says Jarvis.

“I think initially my columns kinda read a bit more like a story, until I sort of you know got the hang of basically letting loose and writing what I thought,” she says.

That meant Jarvis opened herself up to criticism, some of it harsh.

“If the column starts debate in the community, I think I’ve done my job,” says Jarvis.

Cross sees it a little bit differently.

“Very rarely do I get attacked as a human being, whereas Anne really bears the brunt of that on a regular basis,” says Cross.

“The only thing that I wanted to make sure was that I did my homework. I knew the issue and I could defend it, reasonably, and that’s sort of the one thing that I kept in mind,” says Jarvis.

“A lot of people don’t understand the difference between opinion and news,” says Cross. “The biggest criticism of Anne online is that her columns are biased. Well, of course they’re biased! That’s the whole point.”

The couple says the pandemic took a toll on them both, because of the intensity and fluidity of the situation.

“I was writing columns every day,” says Jarvis. “Normally a columnist’s job is three times, three columns a week.”

On many occasions, Jarvis says she would be halfway done a column, and would have to delete it and start over because the situation changed constantly.

“There are big stories almost every day which is in some ways a good thing, it just keeps you very busy and focused,” says Cross. “But at the same time, there’s no real down time. Every day is an intense day.”

With pandemic restrictions easing, the couple felt it was a good time to retire from their profession.

“Everything seems sort of wide open,” says Cross. “We haven’t figured out what we’re going to do but given the last two years - where your day is so intense - I’m sort of looking forward to relaxing.”

“I love this job but I feel I need to do this (retire),” says Jarvis.