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IN MEMORIAM
Remembering Jack White
BY IAN DONNIS

Of all the characteristically good things I’ll remember about Jack White, one was his jaunty gait as he would walk each Friday out of the WPRI-WNAC-TV (Channels 12, 64) newsroom, preparing to pepper Governor Donald L. Carcieri, House Speaker William J. Murphy, or some other guest on Newsmakers with a battery of questions.

This confident stride suggested how White -- after a long and distinguished career in journalism, which included winning a Pulitzer Prize at the Providence Journal in 1974 for revealing how Richard M. Nixon cheated on his income taxes – still had plenty of fire in his belly right up until his premature death Wednesday morning, apparently from a heart attack.

Jack was the real deal, a gentleman and consummate professional, who maintained an investigative reporter’s drive and hard-nosed sensibility in the increasingly superficial and entertainment-suffused realm of television news. He worked a galaxy of sources, steadily scoring a variety of scoops. As the dean of local mob reporters, he set a high standard, and helped to bring along other reporters, like Jim Taricani of WJAR-TV (Channel 10).

He was a man with a gold-plated resume: a Pawtucket native, he helped to form the investigative unit at the Providence Journal (richly recalling how he did so with the stipulation that Randall Richard be his partner), and served on the founding board of directors of Investigative Reporters & Editors. After leaving the ProJo, he worked for WBZ-TV in Boston, the Cape Cod Times, and then WPRI, picking up Emmys along the way. The Providence Newspaper Guild recognized him a few years back for honoring a Guild strike in 1973, even though it meant the possibility of getting beat on what proved to be his Pulitzer-winning story. His passion for reporting was matched by his love of the Red Sox, the Bruins, fishing near his home on the Cape, and his wife, Beth, their children, and their grandkids – whose pictures he proudly displayed at the drop of a hat.

I got to know Jack better when he asked me a few years ago to become a panelist on Newsmakers, the Sunday morning Q&A show, and it was a privilege to work with him. He was the best of what the news business can offer. His bulldog-like pursuit of the news was mixed with a gentle sense of humor, an incisive BS detector, and a well-honed sense of outrage about those who abuse the public trust.

Beyond the news, our mutual Sox obsession animated our private conversations, as we marked the team’s triumphs and travails. It seems like just yesterday (September 2, actually) when Jack and Beth, who met as sweethearts at nearby Boston University, joined my girlfriend and I on Fenway Park’s right field roof deck for a game on a lovely late summer night. Despite the disappointment of a 7-3 loss to the Orioles, he relished this relatively recent addition to the ballpark, as well as just the chance to be there. (Longtime Providence denizens will recall how Jack used to display his Ted Williams’ jacket while bellying up to the bar at Hope’s, the former downtown watering hole favored by reporters.)

Jack seemed so vibrant in his early 60s, so full of good-natured life, and so engaged in his work, I can’t believe that my friend is gone.


Issue Date: October 14 - 20, 2005
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