I am heartbroken at this news. Bill was one of my best friends in this business and my model for covering right-wing extremists. We met in 1996 covering the Montana Freemen standoff, and were partners in crime for the SPLC for six years.
https://twitter.com/leah_sottile/status/1462319419632148483
No one had better stories to tell than Bill. An evening with him was always an amazing river of anecdotes. And as Leah says, he was a deeply kind and generous man.
Here’s Bill when we visited the Viola Liuzzo memorial near Selma.
Here’s Bill when we visited the Viola Liuzzo memorial near Selma.
Bill was already a legend among PNW journalists by the time I met him. He covered the Weaver standoff before it was a standoff; he was the first reporter to type the words “Ruby Ridge.” (He told me he looked it up on a Forest Service map.) RWers blamed Bill for the standoff.
PBS' American Experience produced an excellent Ruby Ridge documentary this spring, and Bill features prominently in it. Here are some clips of that.
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