Ken was a dear friend of mine. We met in graduate school, at SAIS. I remember many great and long political discussions with him over lunch or a coffee. He was always full of ideas, against injustice, and for a better world. We had lots of great laughs as well, also with Beatriz over a great pasta dinner made by none other than the man himself. What a cook!
When he and Beatriz moved to Chile, I remember staying with them for the millennium celebration. I was so ill with a sinus infection, but there was Ken with a big bottle of lemon water and his cheerful encouragement, “use the neti-pot!.” He made a great doctor, and I was better in no time.
Ken loved Beatriz so much, it was an inspiration. You could see the affection in his eyes, and in how proudly he spoke of her. Then there he was also, a wonderful father. He would come by to visit with little Eddie in his arms. The last time I saw Ken was at my wedding, before I moved across the ocean. It is so sad to hear that we will not hear his great stories and join in a laugh with him again. Memories of him will always stay with me.
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The Life and Times of Kenneth John Dermota
Journalist, union organizer Ken Dermota dead at 53
WASHNGTON - Ken Dermota, a journalist, union organizer, radio show host and teacher, died in Washington on May 11 after a long battle with cancer. He was 53.
During an unconventional life spanning North and South America, Ken investigated media bias against the Mapuche Indians of Chile, helped start a human rights group in Colombia, and skillfully handled plumbing problems at his Capitol Hill home.
His 2002 work on the deterioration of press freedoms in the decade following Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, became a best-seller in Chile.
“Never has there been such an investigation of the press, no study so complete,” Enrique Correa, a cabinet minister in the 1990-1994 post- Pinochet government of president Patricio Aylwin, wrote of the book, “And Well Tied Down: Chile's Press Under Democracy.”
“It will prove itself to be a transcendent, enduring work that will be quoted and consulted.”
Kenneth John Dermota was born February 5, 1956 in York, Pennsylvania, the son of an upholsterer and a housekeeper. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Antioch College, a bastion of liberalism and student activism in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Ken was an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York for a decade before moving to Colombia in 1990 to work as a free-lance journalist.
His clients included Business Week, the Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, the (Toronto) Globe and Mail, French newspaper Le Monde, National Public Radio and NBC Radio. He extensively covered the drug war at the time, and was the only foreign reporter to interview drug lord Pablo Escobar in prison.
In 1994, Ken -- by then president of Bogota’s Foreign Press Association – met his future wife, Colombian lawyer Beatriz Elena Leon, while covering a political event.
She credits his organizing savvy and community connections for her appointment, a year later, as mayor of the Bogota municipality of Usaquen.
The couple moved in 1996 to Washington where Ken worked for NBC radio and enrolled at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), earning a master’s degree in Latin American affairs.
Armed with a Knight International Journalism Fellowship, he spent a year in Chile, teaching journalism at the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad Diego Portales.
Complaints from his students and dozens of journalists he interviewed led Ken to investigate the lack of access to public records and even basic information such as media ownership.
The fruit of this research, in addition to “Tied Down” (“Chile Inedito” in Spanish), was an 80-page manual for investigative journalists in Chile, published by the Universidad de Chile.
Ken joined the Washington bureau of Agence France-Presse in November 2001. He traveled to Caracas for AFP to cover the 47-hour coup against President Hugo Chavez in April 2002. His stories out of Washington included the April 2007 case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam, who ran a prostitution ring patronized by Washington elite. He also taught journalism at the American and Howard universities in Washington D.C.
One of Ken’s final articles, “Snow Fall,” on the failed U.S. war on drugs, appeared in the July-August 2007 edition of “The Atlantic” magazine and sparked lively debate on several specialty websites on US drug policies.
A music lover with sophisticated tastes and an extensive collection, Ken hosted a weekly two-hour jazz show on Colombian radio as well as the country’s only radio news show in English at the time.
The idea for what eventually became the Red Nacional de Iniciativas por la Paz y contra la Guerra (REDEPAZ), one of Colombia’s leading Human Rights organizations, began over drinks at Ken’s apartment in a Bohemian neighborhood of Bogota.
At home in Washington, he was a motorcycle enthusiast, an avid cook, an accomplished handyman, and a doting father who cherished hiking with his son Eddie.
Yet he still made time for writing projects, including an unpublished futuristic work of fiction about a world without money.
Ken is survived by his wife Beatriz Elena; their eight-year-old son Eddie; and his older brother Ralph Dermota of York, Pennsylvania.
A previous marriage to Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo ended in divorce.
In lieu of flowers Beatriz Elena asks that donations be made in Ken’s name to the Two Rivers Public Charter School of Washington, where Eddie is a student.
ch/ksb
Two Rivers Pulic School es
1227 4th St. NE
Washington DC 20002
www.tworiverspcs.org
During an unconventional life spanning North and South America, Ken investigated media bias against the Mapuche Indians of Chile, helped start a human rights group in Colombia, and skillfully handled plumbing problems at his Capitol Hill home.
His 2002 work on the deterioration of press freedoms in the decade following Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, became a best-seller in Chile.
“Never has there been such an investigation of the press, no study so complete,” Enrique Correa, a cabinet minister in the 1990-1994 post- Pinochet government of president Patricio Aylwin, wrote of the book, “And Well Tied Down: Chile's Press Under Democracy.”
“It will prove itself to be a transcendent, enduring work that will be quoted and consulted.”
Kenneth John Dermota was born February 5, 1956 in York, Pennsylvania, the son of an upholsterer and a housekeeper. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Antioch College, a bastion of liberalism and student activism in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Ken was an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York for a decade before moving to Colombia in 1990 to work as a free-lance journalist.
His clients included Business Week, the Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, the (Toronto) Globe and Mail, French newspaper Le Monde, National Public Radio and NBC Radio. He extensively covered the drug war at the time, and was the only foreign reporter to interview drug lord Pablo Escobar in prison.
In 1994, Ken -- by then president of Bogota’s Foreign Press Association – met his future wife, Colombian lawyer Beatriz Elena Leon, while covering a political event.
She credits his organizing savvy and community connections for her appointment, a year later, as mayor of the Bogota municipality of Usaquen.
The couple moved in 1996 to Washington where Ken worked for NBC radio and enrolled at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), earning a master’s degree in Latin American affairs.
Armed with a Knight International Journalism Fellowship, he spent a year in Chile, teaching journalism at the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad Diego Portales.
Complaints from his students and dozens of journalists he interviewed led Ken to investigate the lack of access to public records and even basic information such as media ownership.
The fruit of this research, in addition to “Tied Down” (“Chile Inedito” in Spanish), was an 80-page manual for investigative journalists in Chile, published by the Universidad de Chile.
Ken joined the Washington bureau of Agence France-Presse in November 2001. He traveled to Caracas for AFP to cover the 47-hour coup against President Hugo Chavez in April 2002. His stories out of Washington included the April 2007 case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam, who ran a prostitution ring patronized by Washington elite. He also taught journalism at the American and Howard universities in Washington D.C.
One of Ken’s final articles, “Snow Fall,” on the failed U.S. war on drugs, appeared in the July-August 2007 edition of “The Atlantic” magazine and sparked lively debate on several specialty websites on US drug policies.
A music lover with sophisticated tastes and an extensive collection, Ken hosted a weekly two-hour jazz show on Colombian radio as well as the country’s only radio news show in English at the time.
The idea for what eventually became the Red Nacional de Iniciativas por la Paz y contra la Guerra (REDEPAZ), one of Colombia’s leading Human Rights organizations, began over drinks at Ken’s apartment in a Bohemian neighborhood of Bogota.
At home in Washington, he was a motorcycle enthusiast, an avid cook, an accomplished handyman, and a doting father who cherished hiking with his son Eddie.
Yet he still made time for writing projects, including an unpublished futuristic work of fiction about a world without money.
Ken is survived by his wife Beatriz Elena; their eight-year-old son Eddie; and his older brother Ralph Dermota of York, Pennsylvania.
A previous marriage to Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo ended in divorce.
In lieu of flowers Beatriz Elena asks that donations be made in Ken’s name to the Two Rivers Public Charter School of Washington, where Eddie is a student.
ch/ksb
Two Rivers Pulic School es
1227 4th St. NE
Washington DC 20002
www.tworiverspcs.org
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2009
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May
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- Beatriz and Eddie are grateful for the outpouring ...
- When I turned 40, Ken presented me with The Art of...
- Envio mis condolencias y mi solidaridad a mi herma...
- Ken was a dear friend of mine. We met in graduate ...
- My gosh, he had a big head even back then!Write yo...
- The GreatestThe very day I met your Dad, who as yo...
- My fondest memory of Ken is his love for his s...
- Anyone that has ever met Ken knows about his love ...
- If your car broke down, or your gun jammed, if you...
- I was saddened to hear of Ken's passing last week,...
- When we first learned about Ken's condition some ...
- Sometime after the treatments began, Ken was remar...
- When I started working at AFP in Washington five y...
- Dear Beatriz Elena and Eddie, I work in the a...
- Ken had a certain flair about him. Ask how he was ...
- His voice and his big eyes are what I will remembe...
- My wife and I made friends with Ken, Beatriz and E...
- Les enviamos nuestras condolencias y nuestra solid...
- I will never forget Ken's voice. He had a tall, s...
- Ken made the absolute best hot chocolate I've ever...
- Ken was my student in the mid-carer Master's progr...
- Just wanted to add my condolences. I am so sorry t...
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