William Zachary “Bill” Malinowski, 57, of Barrington, R.I., died Aug. 11 in his home. He was diagnosed 16 months before that with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
He began as a reporter at The Providence (R.I.) Journal in 1985 and had a more than 30-year career there. Before that, Malinowski was a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post and the Tempe (Ariz.) Daily News.
He received the Master Reporter award in 2014 from the New England Society of News Editors. He also received the society’s 2014 Sevellon Brown New England Journalist of the Year award for a series he wrote on gun violence called The Cost of a Bullet.
“He cut through the nonsense and the verbiage and got to the heart of the matter while always understanding the betrayal of the public trust,” Dan Barry, a friend and colleague of Malinowski at the Providence Journal, said in the Journal’s obituary on Malinowski. “He was comfortable talking with cops and wise guys. They respected him because he was so straightforward — there was no artifice.”
Mike Stanton, a former Providence Journal investigative reporter and Malinowski’s friend, said in the Journal’s obituary on Malinowski: “Bill was a reporter’s reporter who knew and reminded me daily of the value of shoe-leather journalism. He was a comforting presence on a big story.”
Malinowski leaves his wife, Mary, a former photographer at the Journal; a daughter, Molly; a sister, Marsha; a brother, Paul; a half-sister, Bronislawa.
The obituaries were written, at least in part, from published reports by Bulletin correspondent Nimra Aziz, an undergraduate student in the Northeastern University School of Journalism.