William Steele Gilmore

1971

Born June 22, 1884, William Steele Gilmore of Princeton, Indiana, was active in Indiana journalism for most of his life. Gilmore began his own journalistic career as a reporter for the Princeton-Clarion, and later reported for both the Terre Haute Tribune and Star. After reporting for yet another Indiana paper, the Indianapolis Star, Gilmore started working for the Detroit News, and worked for the Detroit News for the next 44 years of his life.

In 1909, Gilmore began as a general reporter for the Detroit News and by 1933 was the News Managing Editor. Gilmore continued as managing editor for the next 20 years, from 1933-1953. Perhaps Gilmore was best known for his editorials done at the Detroit News, in which he severely criticized then-President Roosevelt and Roosevelt’s policies on World War II, the Depression, and the New Deal. It has been said that he criticized everything but the war itself.

During World War II, Gilmore was appointed Director of the War Censorship Board, which set voluntary guidelines for news coverage of the war. Gilmore was president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors from 1942-1943, and was also president of the North American Alliance. An Indiana University graduate, Gilmore was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame by the Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi, in 1971. Gilmore, who died in 1978, was 94 at the time of his death.