Capitol File magazine’s Living Well section features a contributing writer in the spring 2010 issue, who is, well, not living anymore.
Bill Whitman — diplomat, travel writer and author of “Washington, D.C.: Off the Beaten Path” — regularly contributed to Capitol File. And though he passed away on Oct. 30, 2009, he was featured in the spring edition with a byline on an article titled “Berlin Redux,” with no mention of his death anywhere in the magazine.
A representative of the magazine said the piece was added as a way to honor the former editor’s agreement to include an article by Bill Whitman. Yeas & Nays followed up with the magazine’s former editor (as of May 2009) Sherry Moeller, who said the article was left in the editorial queue by her previous editor, Kate Gibbs.
“Well, then that story is two years old,” Gibbs told Yeas & Nays. She assigned the piece to Whitman in the summer of 2007.
The magazine says it plans to publish another of Whitman’s articles in the summer 2010 issue with a note of his passing.
In an official statement, Gina Lengeling, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said, “Bill Whitman’s article was slated to run in the winter 2009 issue of Capitol File magazine but due to routine editorial changes, Mr. Whitman’s article was pushed back to the spring 2010 issue. … As the article was already in the queue, it was an oversight that a note was not included with his article.”
But has the article been updated since it was penned in 2007?
“Of course,” Lengeling said briskly.
