All good things, the old proverb says, must come to an end. I can attest that it's true, because my newspaper career has been a very good thing (at least from my perspective), and this is my final Sunday column as a newspaper editor.

Friday was my last day as The Bee's editorial page editor. In a couple of weeks, I'll begin post-journalism life. So I hope you will bear with me as I take the opportunity to offer a few observations on newspapering and the work of its editorial pages.

Please do not be alarmed. This is not a column about the plight and prospects of newspapers. I don't claim to know what the future holds for newspapers and journalism. If I did I'd be making a killing as a consultant, not writing a farewell column.

No, I want to talk a bit about the part of newspapers I know best: their editorial pages.

First, let me acknowledge that editorial pages are an imperfect undertaking. How could it be otherwise? In the course of a single year, we offer so many opinions on so many topics that we are bound to be wrong on many occasions. But being right, as desirable as that is, is not what an editorial page is about.

Editorial pages – and their online extensions – have many roles: Providing a forum for public discussion, offering a range of views, setting agendas, standing up to the powerful. But after more than 20 years of being involved in editorial pages, I think there is one role that transcends all the others: Offering a strong, consistent, fair and independent voice, a voice attuned to both the issues of the day and the needs of the future, engaged in the life of the city, region, state and nation.

When editorial pages and editorial writers take on that role with passion and commitment, they serve a unique role in American democracy, a role that no other institution – not broadcast or online media, not political parties, not schools, not churches, not civic organizations – can fulfill.

In my time on editorial pages, I've been privileged to work with passionate and committed journalists who have accomplished things to be proud of. Here in Sacramento, my colleagues on the editorial pages have vigorously advocated lower bus fares for schoolkids, for better zoning decisions, for restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley, for better schools, for honest government. They have stood up against numerous interests that would loot the public treasuries, against self-serving and self-dealing politicians, against those who would divide Californians by race, or ethnicity or class.

We haven't always been successful, but we've always been there, giving it a shot, day after day. That presence, that continuity of voice, is what an editorial page is all about.

The Bee's commitment to strong local commentary was one of the things that attracted me to Sacramento in 2001. And I am confident that commitment will continue.

Lord knows, California needs a commitment like that. Looming beyond the current financial crisis is the prospect of a constitutional convention that has the potential to cure the state's political problems – or to plunge it further into chaos.

I don't know which it will do, but I am sure of this: There's a much better chance of a positive outcome if editorial writers from the state's news- papers are doing their jobs, watching elected officials, interest groups and political parties, and calling them to account for what they do and say.

I won't be around to take part in the festivities, but I'll be watching from afar. And whenever one of my colleagues at The Bee or any other newspaper lands a good solid verbal punch to some windbag's flap- ping jaw, I'll be saying, "Go get 'em, Tiger."

I hope you'll do the same.