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Keith Edward Power
March 29, 1933 – September 4, 2021
Keith Power, like many of the toughest journalists in history, made a name for himself as the city’s deputy editor of the San Francisco Chronicle when the going got tough – or at least when it was really raining. outside.
When a downpour reached a certain crescendo, the black, curly haired reporter ceremoniously walked to the windows on the third floor of the Chronicle building on Mission Street and pointed his binoculars at a puddle behind the old mint building. Glancing like a ship’s captain, he was gauging the size of the puddle to determine if a weather story should be attributed.
The puddle, dubbed “Lake Power” by grieved journalists who were given unpopular assignments, is a lasting legacy of a writer and editor who embodied the newspaper’s swaggering style in the 1960s, 70s and 80.
Keith Edward Power, a brilliant and demanding editor and one of the most witty writers of the Chronicle in the newspaper’s heyday as a wild and irreverent hotbed for funny and spirited journalists, died on September 4 from a pneumonia and heart failure. He was 88 years old.
Born March 29, 1933 in Toronto, Canada, he was one of three boys raised in an Irish Catholic family. His father was a public servant at the Bell Canada telephone company. Teenager and high school student, he romances journalists and dreams of becoming an international reporter.
Avoiding college, Power worked for a number of Canadian provincial newspapers in his youth, honing his journalism skills. He was a reporter for the venerable Globe and Mail in Toronto in the early 1950s and was hired in 1958 as an editor at the Reuters news agency in London where he flourished among the noisy crowd of Fleet Street from “ink-stained” writers and intellectuals. and storytellers.
As it happened, unbridled journalism was in vogue at The Chronicle, where editor Scott Newhall assembled a team of talented and colorful writers and columnists in an attempt to outflank rival San Francisco Examiner. Power joined the “Voice of the West” in 1963 as a general assignment reporter – moving from London to the Bay Area – and helped win the traffic war with the Examiner.
He has been recognized for his coverage of major local and international events, including reporting in Guyana on the mass murder of Jim Jones, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the serial killer Zodiac. The Chronicle nominated him twice for the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Tokyo Rose exemption and for his reporting on the dangers of the earthquake in California.
As editor-in-chief, Power led a task force of journalists covering the emerging HIV / AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Among the reporters he supervised was Randy Shilts, famous for his coverage of the crisis and for his bestseller “And the Band Played Onâ€. Shilts died of AIDS in 1994.
Power retired from The Chronicle in 1985 after 22 years and eventually moved to Sonoma County. A wine lover before it became fashionable, he has co-authored “The Wine Cellar Manual” with his wife Joyce for 60 years. The book, which compares wine to a living creature, is imbued with the characteristic spirit of Power. Besides his wife Joyce, he is survived by his sons Gavin Power of Los Angeles and Brendan Power of San Bruno and his granddaughter, Quinn Cathleen Power.
March 29, 1933 – September 4, 2021
Keith Power, like many of the toughest journalists in history, made a name for himself as the city’s deputy editor of the San Francisco Chronicle when the going got tough – or at least when it was really raining. outside.
When a downpour reached a certain crescendo, the black, curly haired reporter ceremoniously walked to the windows on the third floor of the Chronicle building on Mission Street and pointed his binoculars at a puddle behind the old mint building. Glancing like a ship’s captain, he was gauging the size of the puddle to determine if a weather story should be attributed.
The puddle, dubbed “Lake Power” by grieved journalists who were given unpopular assignments, is a lasting legacy of a writer and editor who embodied the newspaper’s swaggering style in the 1960s, 70s and 80.
Keith Edward Power, a brilliant and demanding editor and one of the most witty writers of the Chronicle in the newspaper’s heyday as a wild and irreverent hotbed for funny and spirited journalists, died on September 4 from a pneumonia and heart failure. He was 88 years old.
Born March 29, 1933 in Toronto, Canada, he was one of three boys raised in an Irish Catholic family. His father was a public servant at the Bell Canada telephone company. Teenager and high school student, he romances journalists and dreams of becoming an international reporter.
Avoiding college, Power worked for a number of Canadian provincial newspapers in his youth, honing his journalism skills. He was a reporter for the venerable Globe and Mail in Toronto in the early 1950s and was hired in 1958 as an editor at the Reuters news agency in London where he flourished among the noisy crowd of Fleet Street from “ink-stained” writers and intellectuals. and storytellers.
As it happened, unbridled journalism was in vogue at The Chronicle, where editor Scott Newhall assembled a team of talented and colorful writers and columnists in an attempt to outflank rival San Francisco Examiner. Power joined the “Voice of the West” in 1963 as a general assignment reporter – moving from London to the Bay Area – and helped win the traffic war with the Examiner.
He has been recognized for his coverage of major local and international events, including reporting in Guyana on the mass murder of Jim Jones, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the serial killer Zodiac. The Chronicle nominated him twice for the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Tokyo Rose exemption and for his reporting on the dangers of the earthquake in California.
As editor-in-chief, Power led a task force of journalists covering the emerging HIV / AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Among the reporters he supervised was Randy Shilts, famous for his coverage of the crisis and for his bestseller “And the Band Played Onâ€. Shilts died of AIDS in 1994.
Power retired from The Chronicle in 1985 after 22 years and eventually moved to Sonoma County. A wine lover before it became fashionable, he has co-authored “The Wine Cellar Manual” with his wife Joyce for 60 years. The book, which compares wine to a living creature, is imbued with the characteristic spirit of Power. Besides his wife Joyce, he is survived by his sons Gavin Power of Los Angeles and Brendan Power of San Bruno and his granddaughter, Quinn Cathleen Power.
Published by San Francisco Chronicle September 20-26, 2021.
