William Zimmerman, a career journalist who joined American Banker as a copy editor after graduating from Queens College in the early 1960s and rose to serve as editor-in-chief from 1980 to 1989, died Sunday in New York.
Zimmerman, who was 82, led American Banker during a decade that witnessed both the Savings and Loan Crisis and the growth of nonbank financial services providers. Inside the newsroom, Zimmerman mentored a generation of young reporters. Indeed, those who worked with Zimmerman remember him as the opposite of the grizzled newsman who has become a media archetype.
"He was a warm, generous, kind-hearted man who genuinely cared about how I was doing in my career," Barbara Rehm, who joined American Banker's Washington Bureau in 1987, later rising to serve as editor-in-chief, said Tuesday. "He had an aura about him that emanated kindness. You felt from across the room. It was that substantial."
"I'm so grateful for the mentorship and promotion of my career Bill Zimmerman gave me," Rehm added.
"Bill was the [editor] who had the most impact on me," Laura Gross, who worked at American Banker from 1974 to 1988, said Tuesday. "He was extraordinary…He gave so much to those of us who were open to it. I don't know what would have become of me if it weren't for him, to tell you the truth."
Gross was appointed associate editor during Zimmerman's tenure as editor. She said Zimmerman worked to make American Banker more inclusive for women and minority journalists at a time when that wasn't always the norm. "It was an era of men; it was a business of men," Gross said. "He was a man who treated women in the newsroom as equals. He made me the first woman [to be named] on the masthead of American Banker when I was associate editor. It was a great honor for me."
Zimmerman was born in Brooklyn and raised in Bensonhurst and Queens. According to his daughter, Carlota Zimmerman, Zimmerman attended the March on Washington in August 1963 where he witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King deliver his famous "I have a dream" speech. Two decades later, as an editor, Zimmerman sought to make American Banker and later Newsday, which he joined in 1990, more inclusive, Carlota Zimmerman said. "He was especially sensitive to women of color and in general people of color," she said. "He helped a lot of women and other [minorities] get opportunities. I've received countless emails from people, men, women, Black, white, who said he gave them their start. He really wanted to make [journalism] more reflective of what the country was going through."
In addition to his work at American Banker and Newsday, where he was a senior editor from 1990 to 2004, Zimmerman was a prolific, self-published author. He wrote more than 20 books, publishing them through his own company, Guarionex Press. In a 2006 Creative Times article, Zimmerman recounted how he was inspired to write his first book, How to Tape Instant Oral Biographies, after listening to a tape of children interviewing elderly residents of a retirement home he found at a local library.
"He started Guarionex Press in 1979," Carlota Zimmerman said. "It was literally him and my mother sitting at the kitchen table with his first book. "I spent my childhood selling books with him at book fairs."
In 2006, Zimmerman launched MakeBeliefsComix.com, a still-active website site that lets students create comic strips. "He was always a man who took classes," Carlota Zimmerman said. "Everything from the poetry of Yeats to the history of the Bible. No matter what was going on at American Banker or Newsday, he had a lot of other creativity."
Co-workers at American Banker recall Zimmerman as an inspiring newsroom leader. "He would send me hand-written notes when he thought I wrote a good story," Rehm said. "Looking back, I don't think they were that good. I was just a rookie, but he was such a supporter. I loved working for him. Everyone loved working for him."
Gross credits Zimmerman with a "monumental impact" covering financial services as it underwent revolutionary changes during the 1980s. "I can't find words to describe him," Gross said. "He was one of a kind."
Zimmerman is survived by his wife Teodorina and by Carlota Zimmerman, as well as a sister, Cynthia Strauss, and niece, Meggie Zimmerman. A memorial service is planned for the spring.
