Opinion | From the editor’s office to the baseball field, Peter Comparelli was a man for all seasons
Exacting journalist and compassionate friend, former editor left a sizeable imprint on many in Hong Kong and abroad
Hyperbole is truly a contagion, that much is understood. And so is the fact that Peter Comparelli would most likely not want any of this. Uncomfortable as he would be, though, he is sadly no longer here to stop it.
Peter succumbed to lung cancer last week, aged 63, and for a man who had no grandiose designs on a legacy, his imprint on Hong Kong and beyond is nonetheless indelibly etched.
He arrived from Vancouver in the mid-80s to work for Asiaweek magazine and was assigned throughout the region before returning to Hong Kong full time in the early ’90s as an editor at Asia Inc. He left the media business temporarily to work for the Hong Kong government before coming back for two stints as editor at Prestige Hong Kong.
Few of us, in fact no one I know, can claim to be the absolute and undisputed best at what they do. But Peter was.
So vigilant and exacting was he as an editor that colleagues called him “The Gatekeeper” because nothing got by him. “Best set of eyes in the business,” said one of his publishers and no one ever disagreed.
