Robert Whitcomb
PROVIDENCE, RI -- Robert B. Whitcomb, vice president and editorial pages editor for The Providence Journal, is retiring at the end of this month.
Whitcomb, 65, has been a vice president at the newspaper since 1997 and in charge of its editorial pages since 1992.
While his name will disappear from the newspaper's masthead, it will show up routinely on the pages Whitcomb has overseen -- as a bi-weekly columnist commenting, he said, on "a wide range of topics representing my existential angst."
Whitcomb first joined The Journal in 1976 after writing and editing stints at the Boston Herald American, the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal and The Wall Street Journal, in New York. He left The Providence Journal at the end of 1982 to become an editor for the International Herald Tribune, based in Paris, and returned to The Journal in 1987, serving as acting Sunday managing editor before moving upstairs in 1989 to begin writing editorials.
"Bob Whitcomb has had a stellar 43-year career in journalism," said Howard G. Sutton, publisher, president and chief executive officer of The Providence Journal Company. "For the last 21 years he has produced some of the finest editorial pages in the country for The Providence Journal.
"He leaves behind a sterling record of service to the newspaper and to Southern New England, as an advocate for better government, a fan of alternative energy, a strong supporter for economic development and a skeptic of big business."
Whitcomb, a 1970 Dartmouth College graduate who co-authored a book in 2008 about the various interests surrounding a Cape Cod wind farm project. Whitcomb said he will pursue several interests, including one or two writing projects.