Morton Mintz, reporter “who brought a muckraker’s zeal to business reporting,” has died

Morton Mintz, a Washington Post reporter “who brought a muckraker’s zeal to business reporting, notably by helping expose the baby-deforming drug thalidomide and General Motors’ efforts to smear a little-known consumer advocate named Ralph Nader,” died, reports The Post.  He was 103.

By all accounts, states The Post, “Mr. Mintz was driven by relentless skepticism toward institutions and a sense of outrage that knew few bounds. “Editors who cut his copy were almost as suspect as board chairmen who cut corners,” wrote then-Post columnist Colman McCarthy in 1988 upon Mr. Mintz’s retirement from the newspaper.

“In a career spanning more than six decades, Mr. Mintz became one of the first reporters to apply investigative reporting skills to covering consumer affairs. He attended congressional subcommittee hearings few other journalists bothered with, pored over thousands of pages of documents and trial transcripts, and prided himself on a refusal to be charmed or threatened by chief executives and public relations officials.”

“In our work, he was the gold standard,” Nader said. “He was first and best, again and again.”