At memorial service, Sacramento federal court’s press room dedicated to Bee’s Denny Walsh

The journalism and legal communities of the capital region gathered Friday at the Robert T. Matsui U.S. Courthouse to honor Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Denny Walsh, who died this year at the age 88 .

The memorial service — organized by the Walsh family and Clerk of the Court Keith Holland — began with the dedication of the Denny Walsh Press Room by Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb.

Shubb, Holland and others named the fourth-floor office Walsh occupied for 16 years as a tribute to the constitutional freedom of the press and the work Walsh did relentlessly covering proceedings in Central and Northern California. The room, which has been gussied up since Walsh’s time, was complete with his Bee obituary, photos and a boombox playing Walsh’s favorite country music songs. It also had a Bee pager he refused to use tucked away in the top desk drawer.

“What Denny Walsh reported was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” said Shubb, who represented Walsh in a defamation suit years before his appointment to the federal bench. “And when it came to this court, that’s when I stopped worrying about whether I was reading something accurate or inaccurate about cases I was involved with — because Denny did his job.”

The room will continue to be used by Bee reporters and other journalists who cover the federal court’s Eastern District of California.

Walsh led the McClatchy investigative team in Sacramento following stops at the St. Louis Globe-Dispatch, Life magazine and The New York Times . He retired in 2016.

Friends, colleagues and subjects of Walsh’s reporting — including Shubb; Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller; lawyers McGregor Scott and Stewart Katz; retired Bee reporters including Sam Stanton, Marjie Lundstrom, Mareva Brown, Andy Furillo and Jimmy McClung; and documentary journalist Lowell Bergman — regaled mourners with the escapades of “the most sued reporter in America,” as Time magazine labeled him.

A true muckraker, Walsh was sued countless times throughout his 50-year career — including several times while at The Sacramento Bee — and he prevailed every time.

“It seemed like there was nothing that Denny couldn’t get to the bottom of, no matter how hard people tried to hide it from him,” said Stanton, who retired from The Bee in May after 33 years. “And people tried their damnedest.”

“Being allowed to sit down and write a story with Denny Walsh was about as high an honor you had in this business.”

Stanton said he was privileged to write Walsh’s obituary after he died on March 29: “He was the finest reporter I knew.”