“Master Reporter” Gloria Negri retires from the Globe

Like all of us who live in Greater Boston, I’ve been reading Gloria Negri’s stories in the Boston Globe for a long time. Today she gets a nice sendoff, marking her retirement after 53 years at the paper.

David Filipov begins his article by describing her decision to leave for a reporting trip in South Africa in 1975 despite having suffered a broken leg days earlier.

Columnist Brian McGrory actually manages to top that, recounting Negri sitting on a city bench at night hoping to lure the Boston Strangler — into what? an interview? — and later defying both the publisher and her editors, who didn’t want a woman reporting on the Vietnam War.

Earlier this year the New England Society of Newspaper Editors honored Negri with a “Master Reporter” award. She most certainly was — and is.