In Memoriam: Vivian Aplin-Brownlee

From the Washington Post’s obituary:

Vivian Aplin-Brownlee, 61, a former Washington Post editor who had raised an early alarm about what became the paper’s most notorious scandal, died Oct. 20 of complications from leukemia at her home in Washington.

Ms. Aplin-Brownlee, an experienced newswoman who edited The Post’s District Weekly section, sent a tenacious and ambitious reporter, Janet Cooke, to check out a report about a new type of heroin on Washington’s streets. Cooke returned with notes that eventually became “Jimmy’s World,” a tale of an 8-year-old heroin addict. The story won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1981, but it was all made up. The paper returned the award and fired Cooke, and the incident is considered a landmark case in journalism ethics.

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