Observer Media Group executive editor, co-owner Lisa Walsh dies at 69

Lisa Walsh was a pillar in the Sarasota-Manatee community; a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, sister and daughter; and the backbone of one of the most successful media companies in Florida.

By Kat Wingert, Mark Gordon
| 3:00 p.m. September 18, 2023
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When two Secret Service agents asked then-Longboat Observer Executive Editor Lisa Walsh to back off reporting on the 9/11 terrorists, she politely declined. "We're reporters. That's what we do," she said.

Manatee-Sarasota

From the day she started editing the Longboat Observer to the day she handed over editing duties of the four newspapers she built with her husband, there was never a frantic rush, never a shout, never a tense flurry of activity to meet deadlines.

No matter how late the papers to the printers or how big the story, Lisa Walsh was never anything but poised.

It had nothing to do with how much she cared about the papers — and make no mistake, she cared down to the comma — running around barking orders or breathing down reporters’ necks to get copy just wasn’t her nature.