"I think stuff like this goes on in newsrooms all across the country," Zeigler says. "Every editor at the paper serves at the pleasure of the top editor."

Journalistic Style

Giles's years as an editor were also a time when newspapers saw their style and content changing in response to the pressures of other media, some Rochester observers and former colleagues say.

Dick Dougherty, who at age 80 still writes a humor column for the Democrat and Chronicle, says that the time in which Giles worked as an editor was one of transition for the newspaper business.

"The era of the newspaper of record was coming to a close and they were searching for a thing that works," he says. "There was a little less instinctive journalism going on and a little more reliance on readership surveys and that sort of thing. I consider that to be a defense mechanism by the business at large from competition by TV."

Many journalists who worked with Giles in Rochester say that in the face of these sorts of pressures he maintained rock-solid journalistic standards.

"He was a pro newsman and I think he did a lot to improve the coverage of the paper," says Dick Dougherty.

Those who worked for Giles cite a number of major investigative projects as examples of quality journalism under his watch.