David Carr, who died on the job on Thursday at the age of 58, knew how to put people at ease, whether the setting was a fancy conference or a journalism seminar. He knew his stuff, having worked his way through the ranks of newsrooms from the Midwest to the Beltway and on to New York. And he was tough, having carved his way out of debilitating drug addiction. Carr shared all of this with his readers, in his memoir, The Night of the Gun, and in his reporting and columns for The New York Times, his final place of employment, in whose offices he collapsed on Thursday night.

I didn’t know Carr, though I had the pleasure of seeing him speak and conduct interviews multiple times. I read his book in college, which makes me part of a generation of journalists who confront a field that’s experiencing convulsive change. Carr called us “digital natives,” but not in a dismissive way. He worked hard to stay current, and understood the media in a way that few journalists of any generation do.

Carr’s fame spread beyond the usual media circles when he appeared in Page One, a 2011 documentary about life at the Times. In the film, Carr can be seen putting a group of Vice Media executives in their place, reminding them that the global, often dangerous journalism that the Times does can’t easily be replicated, let alone replaced, by scrappy, over-eager buzz-makers who, as Carr memorably put it, “put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop.” That type of candor endeared Carr to his readers and fans, but it was only one aspect of his brilliance.

The other side of Carr’s genius revealed itself last August, when he reconsidered his harsh attitude toward Vice: “Being the crusty old-media scold felt good at the time, but recent events suggest that Vice is deadly serious about doing real news that people, yes, even young people, will actually watch.” Carr, great reporter that he was, knew that adjusting his opinion to reflect reality was an expression of strength, not weakness. That combination of authority, humility, and fearlessness is what made him such an addictive read, and it’s what made so many younger journalists want to be him when we grew up.

We were all better journalists when David Carr was watching us. As we mourn this grievous loss for our profession, we can only hope someone manages to fill his shoes. Until then, we’ll heed his advice, and “type until it becomes writing.”