Caesar Andrews

Birthday: Dec. 5, 1958

Hometown: Mobile, Ala.

Married: Single

Self-portrait: Committed, cool, fair, optimistic. That’s a first draft if not always the final product.

Bad habit: Hoarding newspapers. I’m reluctant to discard them until I’m all done.

Pet peeve: Automatic assumptions that good old days were really all that good in almost all ways

A dangerous story: Old allegations surfaced about a popular community figure, still working at a local school, and abuse of kids years ago. He supposedly threatened that if story ran, he’d kill himself. It ran, after careful contemplation. He didn’t.

Best interview and why: A couple retired from Tuskegee University regaled with tales of how they met and fell in love, survived in a Deep South full of Jim Crow and worked on the campus founded by Booker T. Washington. One treat: Their vivid memories of George Washington Carver, the renowned Tuskegee scientist.

My newsroom’s strengths: Smart, talented, experienced.

Worst parts of the job: Anytime people’s jobs are at stake. Also, bad decisions that in hindsight were never anything but bad.

Best part of the job: Nailing down good stories and admiring (and sometimes helping) talented journalists as they do their jobs.

Vacation spots: New Orleans, Lake Tahoe.

Book at bedside: Lush Life, a bio of jazz artist Billy Strayhorn.

Best advice I could give a 20-year-old: Beware advice from 40-somethings.

My best asset is: Resilience.

A leader I admire: Nelson Mandela.