The other day, we declared the following item from The Los Angeles Times the winner of the Rifftides everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-in-the-lead newswriting competition.
Ed Masry, the flamboyant, crusading environmental lawyer portrayed by actor Albert Finney in the movie “Erin Brockovich,” which was based on Masry’s landmark $333 million settlement against Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for ground water contamination in California’s high desert, has died.
Reader Dick McGarvin of Los Angeles had this response:
Word has it that, at the beginning of this item, Ed was still alive.