Morlin will be missed

Kudos to the Spokesman-Review for doing a great job memorializing former longtime staffer Bill Morlin, who died Nov. 20 from complications caused by a deadly infection. Also to Becky Nappi, John Allison, Jess Walter and others who captured Bill’s professional achievements perfectly in glowing comments during a celebration of his life earlier this month.

I worked with Bill for 10 years while I was a reporter at the Spokane Daily Chronicle and S-R, and he was a close friend of mine for more than 40 years. I’ll miss him greatly. I consider him to be the best investigative journalist ever to have served Inland Northwest readers. He was tenacious, fearless and relentlessly committed to exposing racism, political corruption and all manner of other bad deeds and criminal behavior.

He was an old-school journalist who knew how to cultivate a broad array of great sources, unearth key documents integral to his story telling, and then fashion what he’d learned into compelling prose. In short, he excelled at bringing light to the darkness where some evil-doers like to hide.

Particularly in this era of shrinking newsrooms and expanding news deserts, I fear — like some of those who spoke at the celebration of life held for Bill — that he is among the last of his kind. Our community, our region and our country’s democracy will be poorer for it.

Kim Crompton

Spokane