Wayne Barrett | Journalist, 71
Wayne Barrett, 71, whose tenacious coverage of New York politicians and personalities - including a 1992 biography of Donald Trump - earned him a reputation as a tough but fair investigative reporter, died Thursday. He had been battling interstitial lung disease.
Wayne Barrett, 71, whose tenacious coverage of New York politicians and personalities - including a 1992 biography of Donald Trump - earned him a reputation as a tough but fair investigative reporter, died Thursday. He had been battling interstitial lung disease.
There was no more dedicated muckraker than the gruff, relentless Mr. Barrett, a self-described "country boy from Lynchburg, Virginia" and graduate of Columbia University's journalism school.
Few reporters knew Trump as well as did Mr. Barrett, whose death came less than a day before Trump was to be sworn in as the country's 45th president. He began covering the budding real-estate developer in the late 1970s.
"The most remarkable thing is that the leading birther in the United States is succeeding this president, Mr. Barrett told interviewer Amy Goodman shortly after Trump's stunning defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton. "It's just - I mean, I just - I can't imagine it."
In 1992, he published Trump: The Deals and the Downfalls, reissued last year during Trump's presidential run. He also wrote books on Ed Koch and Rudolph Giuliani. - AP