Former WSJ reporter Bacon, 64, dies of cancer

Kenneth Bacon, a former reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal who later became a Pentagon spokesman, died Saturday from cancer. He was 64.

Stephen Miller of the Journal writes, “The son of an Amherst College dean and professor of political science, he earned graduate degrees in business and journalism simultaneously from Columbia University. He came to the Journal in 1965, and scored a rare (for an intern) page-one story, about an automated car-repair system that one overheated mechanic described as ‘the greatest thing since girls.’

“He went on to join the Journal’s Washington bureau and covered defense, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve. He then became an editor in the Washington bureau. He continued to report long articles on topics as diverse as banking reform and the recovery journey of a crack addict.

“Though he seldom mentioned it, Mr. Bacon’s grandfather was Casey Hogate, who had been a top Dow Jones executive and helped affect the paper’s transformation to a more cosmopolitan newspaper.

“Mr. Bacon lived simply in Washington, riding a bicycle to work as a reporter and walking as Pentagon spokesman. He was legendarily frugal with the air conditioning in his family’s townhouse in D.C.’s scorching summers.”

Read more here.