RIP Linda Deutsch

[MileHigh]

AP writer who covered many high-profile trials, and outside of the L.A. Times was the go-to for the O.J. Trial, was 80.

Linda Deutsch, AP trial writer who had front row to courtroom history, dies at 80

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

AP is leaning a little hard into the "first draft of history" role but I thought the obit was otherwise fine.

 

[MileHigh]

AP is leaning a little hard into the "first draft of history" role but I thought the obit was otherwise fine.

Linda Deutsch was at the forefront of many high-profile trials in American history. For O.J., though, Jim Newton was the must-read from beginning to end in the L.A. Times.

Bringing one of history’s most riveting courtroom dramas to a stunning climax, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of two counts of murder Tuesday, verdicts that set the football Hall of Famer free 474 days after he was arrested and charged with a brutal double homicide.

At 11:16 a.m., Simpson returned home to his Brentwood estate, embracing his longtime friend Al Cowlings in the same driveway where the two were arrested on June 17, 1994. As night fell, crowds of well-wishers and detractors gathered beyond police barricades while the Simpson entourage partied inside the famous home.

Within hours of the verdicts--broadcast live and bringing businesses across the country to a temporary standstill--family members of the victims retreated in grief, and the first of the anonymous jurors emerged to give The Times an interview in which he dismissed the prosecution’s physical evidence as “garbage in, garbage out.”

 

[Slacker]

God-dang, Linda was good.

Every time I saw a Linda Deutsch version of a wire story, I grabbed her take right away.

So RIP to one of the great AP reporters of all time.
Always steady, always reliable ... and always there, too.

 

[goalmouth]

If you cut your journalistic teeth on a typewriter, more than likely you turn out good copy.

 

[HanSenSE]

If you cut your journalistic teeth on a typewriter, more than likely you turn out good copy.

Always had fun telling young reporters that one of the perks of being sports editor of the Spartan Daily in the early 80s was you got an electric typewriter.