Wayne Barrett, the greatest investigative reporter I've ever known, a guiding, goading inspiration to generations of reporters, has died.
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) January 19, 2017
Wayne Barrett, the long time reporter for the Village Voice and one of the first biographers of the President-elect has died at the age of 71. Barrett had been in ill health throughout the 2016 election season, but continued reporting and providing analysis for as long as he was able to.
From his obituary at the NY Times:
Wayne Barrett, the muckraking Village Voice columnist who carved out a four-decade career taking on developers, landlords and politicians, among them Donald J. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71.
His wife, Fran Barrett, said the cause was complications of lung cancer and interstitial lung disease.
…
A 1992 book, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” was, as Mr. Barrett acknowledged, a flop at first. Thanks to his subject’s improbable political ascent 25 years later, it was successfully republished and expanded in 2016 as “Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention.”
Mr. Barrett’s voluminous background files from the Trump biography, and his professional courtesy, made his Brooklyn home a mecca for investigative reporters during the recent presidential campaign.
“There may be no journalist in the nation who knows more about Trump than Barrett,” Jennifer Gonnerman wrote in The New Yorker just after the election.
…
“He took Trump seriously long before anyone else did,” Mr. O’Brien, who is now executive editor of Bloomberg View, said, “and most of the work that followed Wayne’s was built upon his insights.”
Here’s a link to his Twitter feed, which includes links to much of his election year analysis of the President-elect.
Trentrunner
You KNOW Trump exults in this.
So: I’m middle-aged and in good health, and the surest consolation I have on the eve of the Trumpocalypse is that I will likely outlive that tangerine taint wattle.
randy khan
Trump, to demonstrate once again just how bigly his Administration will be, will take the oath of office on two Bibles – one that was given to him by his mother (and undoubtedly had to be exhumed from deep storage in Queens) and the Lincoln Bible, which may sound familiar because President Obama is the only other President since Lincoln to use it for a swearing in.
Now they’ll have to disinfect it.
Maybe it’s just me, but this feels like one more reason to believe the Moscow hotel room story – he’s trying to stomp on everything Obama did.
debbie
@Trentrunner:
He simply could not bear to see something like Trump running this country.
Chris
@randy khan:
That and if you’ve ever met a conservativein your life… they’re exactly that petty.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
Bitter, sore winner is bitter. Obama choose that bible because of the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, and you know he’s um black, and because they came from the same state. It was a big deal symbolically for him to be sworn in with that bible. This will simply be copying his predecessor with no real significance to the choice. It’s a good thing that he’s not the one holding the bible’s, since he’s barely literate, he might hold them upside down.
schrodingers_cat
Cause of death?
JPL
Mike Bloomberg
Thanks to Maggie Haberman’s twitter.
MomSense
@randy khan:
Let’s hope he’s not left alone with the Lincoln Bible and a couple of Russian prostitutes…
FSM forgive me but I can’t stand the tiny handed tin pot.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Calouste
@randy khan: I’m pretty sure his mom’s bible is a copy of the Art of the Deal with a bible cover wrapped around it.
Mutaman
This was the most important story written during the election. Either nobody read it, or nobody cared.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/03/meet-donald-trump-s-top-fbi-fanboy.html
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Its up top in the obit: complications from lung cancer and interstitial lung disease.
Adam L Silverman
@Mutaman: We covered it here!
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Nobody reads this blog!
Villago Delenda Est
Drumpf, Goulianai, and the vile creature of evil know as Cheney outlived this good man.
The Universe sucks.
ruemara
@randy khan: Pretty much. I hope he bursts into flames from touching it.
The angel of death is taking away some decent folks and leaving some less decent ones.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: The demise of Maggie Haberman, on the other hand, would be no loss at all to New York journalism.
Collaborators will be dealt with.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
That is a beautifully-written and generous statement from Mike Bloomberg.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: And Barrett had the biggest rake and raked the most muck on the first two.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s what happens when you make a deal with the devil, you get extra time to spread your evil. Don’t worry their time will come. You can throw dear Maggie in too, she is vapid and her stupidity is harmful.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: @hovercraft: Thanks, good to know that it wasn’t Po tea.
Elizabelle
I wish Wayne had lived to see Trump not allowed inauguration, and a fresh election. I wish we could all see that.
RIP.
hovercraft
Why is an opinion writer writing this story, if we had more muck rakers like Barrett we would be much better served. It is in an opinion blog, but it is objectably factual.
Donald Trump has assembled the worst Cabinet in American history
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: He’d been sick for a while. Politico convened all the biographers several times to do roundtables. There most recent one published today minus Barrett and indicated he was unable to participate because he was ill. When I read that I figured it wouldn’t be long. Last interview I saw with him was on an AM Joy episode and he was having significant difficulty breathing. And his breathing had that wet, I’m drowning in my own lungs sound to it.
Brachiator
I greatly admired his work in the Village Voice. Some of the best journalism I’ve ever read. Barrett was a great prose craftsman too.
RIP
Busybody
Hi all, I’ve been thinking about a diary that I read on Kos. I think I’ve got this right.The Ethics office is there to guide and help the nominees avoid conflicts of interest by suggesting remedies for problems. If a nominee doesn’t heed the Ethics office or avoids it and then, after confirmation, is caught with serious conflicts of interest or unethical, unlawful activities, they can be arrested and charged with felonies. Is this right? I’m asking the lawyers out there and other commentators with gov. experience. If this is correct, it seems to me to be the way to go after them.
Adam L Silverman
@Busybody: That is my understanding.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
The good die young. Some are to evil to die.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Crap. Those are two very tough health problems.
MomSense
@Busybody:
The Republicans are too dumb and/or corrupt to realize the OGE is there to protect them and the country.
Seth Owen
@MomSense: Trump may break the previous record holders for indictments — Nixon and Reagan.
danielx
@Mutaman:
I did. But most people (excepting readers of this blog, naturally) do not read.
Busybody
@MomSense:
@Adam L Silverman:
I lived for 30 years ( 1970-2000) in Kalamazoo, MI (hi, Hillary) and you can’t imagine how conservative it was when we arrived.But as conservative as it is, the DeVos family is loathed in Western Michigan and somebody has some excellent dirt on all of them. All of the nominees are horrible people who have made enemies right and left, not just among the downtrodden, so something will break before long. Isn’t that a happy thought.