TACOMA – Ben W. Gilbert, a longtime Washington Post editor who later became an urban planning official and advocate for the hard of hearing, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 89.
Gilbert died Wednesday at a hospice near his Tacoma home, where he had lived since 1984, his family said. Gilbert had been battling breast cancer that spread to his lungs.
“He loved newspapering,” said his daughter, Amy Mann, of Tacoma. “He was a newspaperman at heart.”
Gilbert began working at The Post as a reporter in 1941 and was named city editor in 1945. He also served as deputy managing editor and associate editor of the editorial page before leaving the paper in 1970.
The Post said Gilbert clashed with Ben Bradlee, managing editor during Gilbert’s final years at the newspaper, over differences in philosophy. But Bradlee and Leonard Downie Jr., the paper’s executive editor, praised Gilbert’s work.
“He was a hard man to love, but he was a hell of a newspaperman,” Bradlee said. “He got things done.”
The Post also said Gilbert helped to expand the newspaper’s coverage of race relations and worked to bring more blacks and women onto the staff.
Dorothy Gilliam, the paper’s first black woman reporter, recalled Gilbert’s support after recruiting her from Columbia University.
“I know a lot of people had running feuds with him, but he was decent to me and he went out of his way,” Gilliam told The Post. “I’m really grateful to him for helping me.”
After leaving journalism, Gilbert was named director of the municipal planning office in Washington, D.C., and later moved to Tacoma.
Gilbert, who suffered from hearing loss, also worked with the Hearing Loss Association of America, putting his love of writing and editing to work on his local chapter’s newsletter.
From 1985 until 2003, Gilbert served on Tacoma’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, including spending six years as chairman. Colleagues said he helped preserve downtown buildings, kick-starting urban renewal that continues today.
His wife, Maurine Coffee Gilbert, died in 1994.
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