T&G's Dianne Williamson Announces Departure: 'It's Time'

WORCESTER, MA—While she is beloved by many, she also probably cracked the record for attracting the most Facebook and comments-section trolls in the county. Whether you love her or consider her your mortal enemy, for years, people have commented, "I only pick up the paper for the obituaries and Dianne Williamson."

They're saying it still, and with sorrow, now that Williamson announced on Monday afternoon that she'd be leaving the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she started as a beat reporter and morphed into a columnist for some 30 years.

"It's time," Williamson announced on her Facebook page. "I've loved my career here, but it's kind of like ending a long relationship that you cherish but realize is no longer right. I'm so grateful for all the support and feedback I've received from you—MOST of you—over the years. Please keep in touch. I don't know what the right-wing trolls will do without me, but I trust they'll survive to spew their venom another day. It's been an honor."

Williamson's column runs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and is easily the most widely-read piece in the Telegram. Gracious, intensely opinionated, honest, fair, empathetic, tough, ethical and humorous, many consider Williamson's exit nothing short of devastating, a massive blow to the longtime paper of record for the city, which is now owned by GateHouse.

Entertainment columnist for the Telegram Craig Semon wrote, "All kidding aside, Dianne Williamson is the most valuable asset the Telegram & Gazette has. She’s the closest thing the paper has to an identity and a celebrity. While she works in an industry where anyone can be replaced, she is irreplaceable. A great writer, a great listener, a great humanist a great satirist and a great humorist, Dianne is one of a kind, a class act, and her departure is the biggest loss the paper has experienced in 20 years."

Photo Credit: Charlene Arsenault