You could always tell John loved reporting because he never stopped gathering information. He probably worked that cellphone in his dreams, cajoling bits and pieces of a story out of sources.
On our chance weekday Metro encounters to or from Bethesda and on weekends in the Y parking lot, John was constantly probing.
He was always trying to figure what I knew or didn't know (probably, mostly, the latter) about a particular antitrust story we were both pursuing.
Generous with friendship, gossip and praise for other people's work. Wilke was interested in all kinds of subjects and people that he would probably never write about. It was part of his MO to keep his fingers constantly on the pulse of the news, listening for that tremor of an undisclosed event or outrage that he could turn into another great scoop.
A minister's son, Wilke had the classic irreverent manner of a preacher's kid, having honed his rakish, smart-assed wit from childhood to avoid any label of saintliness.
He could never quite pull it off. Because if saintliness is a measure of how much someone gives of themselves in kindness, love, camaraderie and sheer decency then Wilke couldn't elude the tag.
Jim Rowley
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A remembrance of John R. Wilke
From family
Tributes
WSJ.com: Page One
Boston Red Sox News
Favorite Places
Tag cloud
became beer best boston bureau called colleagues college days drink family friend game going guy hope john journal journalist kids knew later learn life lot loved man memories met miss nancy news night past people phone really red remember reporter something sources sox story street think thought times together told took wall washington wilke work world wrote wsj years young
created at TagCrowd.com
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment