Several weeks before his death Sept. 10, veteran Connecticut journalist Thomas J. Condon comprehensively recapped the false starts and stalls that have kept the Seaside property in Waterford in limbo for decades.

Unreasonable, even capricious, moves by two governors and a cohort of other state officials; numerous court filings; contested action by Waterford Planning and Zoning Commission; and the dogged persistence of a developer all play their parts in a compendium on Seaside’s old age and its tenuous prospects. It was Tom Condon’s final published piece for The Connecticut Mirror — partly written, according to the Mirror, from a hospital bed.

Instead of a laundry list that could have boiled down to a he-said, she-said litany, one of the state’s most admired journalists retold the long-drawn-out story from a reasonable perspective, citing the pertinent details that will yet shape the fate of the former tuberculosis sanatorium and its historic architecture.

Who, what, when, where, why and how, with a keen sense of how they fit. Someone recently asked me if journalists still talk about the 5 w’s and an h. Yes, and Exhibit A is the work of Tom Condon.

Thomas J. Condon spent 45 years of his half-century journalism career working for the Hartford Courant, following a tour in Vietnam, and earned a law degree in night classes at UConn School of Law . But his story starts in New London, the eldest of seven children. His final Seaside article is a legacy gift to the region.

The reason the Condon kids grew up in New London had to do with their father’s realization that the practice of law in a small city had benefits he would have to give up if he accepted the offers of big city firms. Many years ago, Probate Judge Thomas P. Condon told Morgan McGinley, then a staff writer and columnist for The Day, that here he could have a life outside of work. The judge specifically mentioned no-wait tee times and a five-minute daily commute. It was a good place to raise a family.

His son, from his 2015 retirement from the Courant until this summer, wrote about development, municipal governance and assorted Connecticut-flavored phenomena for the CT Mirror.

Fifty-plus years in reporting, editorializing and writing a thrice-weekly column encourages a comprehensive view of good and bad, weakness and strength. For the hardy few who stick with daily state and local journalism for so long, the reward — and the means to do the job well — is a sense of perspective. Reporting and analyzing the doings of politicians, moneymakers and people with a cause will do that. Tom Condon, by temperament and with a sense of humor, was already a reasonable man.

In the past, journalists often said they were striving for objectivity. “Striving” is the operative word. Divisive times have schooled us in the knowledge that objectivity may be a more of a goal than a tactic. And clearly, it does not motivate everyone who purports to report.

Reasonableness is attainable when objectivity is not. In American and some other Western nations’ jurisprudence, courts may use the “fiction” of the “reasonable man,” more recently cited as the “reasonable person.” What would the imagined reasonable person do in a situation that calls for responsible action? How would such a person, as a juror, judge the actions of another if asked to decide the reasonableness of those actions?

Fortunately, however endangered the species of reasonable persons may be, reasonableness can be contagious. Tom Condon was a vector of reasonableness. He observed, reported and analyzed with the balance of a judge on the bench.

Readers mourn his loss, but there is a saving grace. His reasonableness is on the record in the online archives of his former news organizations. For a breath of oxygen in an overheated political season, look up the work of Tom Condon.

I am sorry we will never read what Tom would have done with the notion of immigrants eating pets.

Lisa McGinley is a member of The Day Editorial Board.