It was as much a part of him as his love of jazz, his understated sartorial consistency, and his deep dismay when encountering the misuse of lie and lay, a battle he knew he had lost but continued to fight. Bill, who greatly expanded The Atlantic's topical range and cultural presence, died in March in Conway, Arkansas, near his hometown of Little Rock, at the age of 87.
Bill was a mentor to two generations of writers. His editorial instincts were penetrating, but couched in a manner that was calm and grounded. James Fallows, a longtime contributor to The Atlantic, remembers their initial meeting:
"Mr. Fallows," he said softly, "I'm Bill Whitworth." Thus began an hour of his patiently asking me about how The Atlantic worked, and how much I was paid, and why I'd made this or that choice in the recent stories I'd done. Bill entirely directed our first conversation with seemingly simple questions: Did you think about this? Why did you write that? Can you explain what the experts are saying? What if they're all wrong? Who did you want to talk with who got left out? What do you still need to know?
Bill was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1937. He started as a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette and, in 1963, followed his Gazette colleague and close friend Charles Portis to Manhattan to take a job at the New York Herald Tribune, where his newsroom colleagues included Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Dick Schaap, and the photographer Jill Krementz. There, Bill covered Robert F. Kennedy's Senate race, the first Harlem riots, the free-speech movement at Berkeley, the Vietnam anti-war protests-he got tear-gassed a lot and the Beatles' first trip to the United States. He was in the Ed Sullivan Show studio for their American-television debut.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2024 من The Atlantic.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2024 من The Atlantic.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
THE AIRPORT-LOUNGE ARMS RACE
Inside the ever more extravagant competition to lure affluent travelers
Hypochondria Never Dies
The diagnosis is officially gone, but health anxiety is everywhere.
Miranda July's Weird Road Trip
The author's midlife-crisis novel is full of estrangement, eroticism, and whimsy.
The Wild Blood Dynasty
What a little-known family reveals about the nation's untamed spirit
The Engrossing Darkness of The Crow
Can a cult hit point the way forward for the beleaguered comic-book movie?
The Godfather of American Comedy
The funniest people on the planet think there's no funnier person than Albert Brooks.
The History My Family Left Behind
A gun, a lynching, and an exodus from Mississippi
Ozempic or Bust
America has been trying to address the obesity epidemic for four decades now. So far, each new \"solution\" has failed to live up to its early promise.
THE ART OF SURVIVAL
In living with cancer, Suleika Jaouad has learned to wrench meaning from our short time on Earth.
DEMOCRACY IS LOSING THE PROPAGANDA WAR
AUTOCRATS IN CHINA, RUSSIA, AND ELSEWHERE ARE NOW MAKING COMMON CAUSE WITH MAGA REPUBLICANS TO DISCREDIT LIBERALISM AND FREEDOM AROUND THE WORLD.