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Rich Whitt, retired AJC reporter, dies

January 29th, 2009 Posted in local

By Mike King

 

As a young reporter at The Courier-Journal, the first time I ever laid eyes on Rich Whitt was when he came to Louisville the afternoon it was announced he had won the Pulitzer Prize. He worked in the Northern Kentucky bureau of the C-J –  a one man operation — and I had spoken to him on the phone a few times, but never met him. He had only been with the paper for a few months.

Like other colleagues, I read with amazement the daily dispatches about malfeasance and outright corruption Rich was turning up in connection with the May 1977 fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky. Over a period of weeks he was breaking stories about illegal wiring, about allowing too many patrons into the club, about exit doors being locked shut from the outside, about the plastic on the club’s chairs that turned toxic when burned, about fire marshals who had failed to do their duty because the club was such an important part of the local economy. 

One story after another, being filed daily and on deadline by a determined reporter who instinctively knew where to go to find the truth. It was only later that newspaper editors decided this kind of work had to be done by project teams taking six months to investigate and six months to write. This was impressive. The best work I had ever read. One reporter working his beat was responsible for the highest form of journalism that can ever be practiced. It took a journalist to explain what went wrong and why 165 people had died.

Fortunately, for me, I got to spend most of Rich’s remaining 30 years in newspapers working closely with him, as a fellow reporter, eventually as an editor and always as a friend. When I retired from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month, the two of us made a pact to have lunch once a week and go see a movie. We joked that we were like two old men making arrangements to meet at the barber shop once a week. Fittingly, the last movie we saw together was Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino. (Rich actually owned one of those in 1973.)

 

Rich’s years in Atlanta were largely spent working the same kinds of stories that he did in Louisville. He turned up eye-opening stories about improper tax breaks for land holders around the state; of construction cost overruns and sweetheart contracts that jeopardized the future of Grady Hospital (deals that to this day hamper the hospital’s ability to get out of debt); about cronyism, incompetence and corruption in the administration of Bill Campbell well before the mayor and his pals were officially charged.

 

Rich called these stories “red-neck journalism.” He often said he wanted to write stories that had people saying, in his words, “‘Damn, that makes me mad,’ and makes their necks turn red.” He did that. He did that a lot.

Bill Torpy described him as “irascible.” That’s a good, kind word for him. He could put you in your place with a smart-assed remark better than any journalist I have ever met. He did not tolerate pompous editors well. In fact he didn’t tolerate them at all, which of course meant that he was always in jeopardy when working for editors who had much less talent than he did. And, yes, he could be hard headed and fight you vigorously in the editing process – but then again I never met a good reporter who didn’t.

In our many hours of commuting between West Marietta and 72 Marietta Street, we would often argue about politics (AJC office as well as state, local and national), about corporate journalism, about life, the neighborhood – you name it, we chewed each other up whenever we had the chance. But when we got to the driveway at the end of the day, the conversation was always the same: “You driving tomorrow or me?”

I loved our time together. He was my hero. He was – and always will remain — my friend.

 

For those of you who want to do something nice in his name, send a donation to the Richard Whitt Memorial Fund for Rural Journalists at the Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues, the University of Kentucky School of Journalism, 122 Grehan Building, Lexington, Ky. 40506-0042.

 

Rich grew up in Beauty Ridge, Ky. (Greenup County along the river). Journalism was his ticket out, but he never forgot the steel mills (where he worked) and the people who instilled in him a righteous sense of fairness and justice.

 

 

Mike King is a retired AJC reporter and editor.

 

 

For more on Rich Whitt, who died Monday, January 26 at age 64, read the Louisville Courier-Journal’s obituary here.