William Cotterell

Newsman William R. “Bill” Cotterell died unexpectedly Nov. 24. He was 82.

As his wife, Cynthia Fuller, told the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida that day, “He loved his family and his son and his seven grandchildren, and they made his life very busy and very complete. I'm gonna miss him. He was a journalist who believed in the facts, not the alternative facts. He was very strong and believed in the ethics of true journalism.

“And if he had opinions, they were in his opinion column, not his news stories."

William Richard Cotterell was born in Philadelphia and raised in Miami, the youngest of three children.

After graduation from Miami Edison High School in 1961, Cotterell enlisted in the Marines, following in his older brother’s footsteps. After his discharge four years later, he earned an associate degree in 1966 from Miami Dade Community College and landed a job as a copy clerk with the Miami Herald. His desire to be a reporter was born the day he applied: As he waited for his interview, a rewrite man was on the phone getting details of a two-car crash from a reporter.

“It looked like the most exciting work in the world,” he once recalled. “I wanted to be that reporter on the other end of the phone line.”

A year later, in 1967, the United Press International wire service hired him as a reporter and assigned him to cover the state Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina.

Cotterell worked for UPI in Raleigh, North Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; Miami; and in Tallahassee twice, the first time from 1969 to 1974. He spent two years traveling the country covering Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter’s successful 1976 presidential campaign. The experience catapulted the young reporter into a memorable career, which included coverage of political conventions, civil rights events, space shots, hurricanes, the business world and Florida government.

Cotterell remained in Atlanta with UPI after the 1976 election and it was there he met Fuller, then a Georgia legislator. They married in 1984 and the same year moved for Cotterell’s second stint in the UPI Tallahassee bureau.

Cotterell spent 45 years as a full-time news reporter, including 27 years with the Tallahassee Democrat beginning in 1985 when the venerable UPI folded. He covered 10 Florida governors and 44 sessions of the Florida Legislature.

The Democrat had long covered state government, but it had never dedicated a reporter to focusing on the issues that affect the nearly 100,000 state employees, most of whom are based in Tallahassee. Cotterell soon became the expert on state worker issues, from pay and benefits to unfair treatment to unrecognized successes to occasional scandals. For more than 25 years, he wrote a weekly column about state workers.

Cotterell paired his expertise on state workers with an equal focus on Florida politics, covering the legislature, governors, state agencies and Florida courts. In a day when all the major Florida papers had capital bureaus in Tallahassee, Cotterell helped the Democrat to go toe-to-toe with the Miami Herald, the then-St. Petersburg Times and Orlando Sentinel.

Though he officially retired in 2012, he continued to write his column, “Capital Curmudgeon,” about political issues, first for the Democrat and most recently for the News Service of Florida.

Cotterell’s dedication to journalism included teaching young reporters, as well as veteran reporters new to Capitol coverage, “the ropes” of covering state government. Since his death, social media has been flooded with tributes and accolades from former colleagues, editors, sources and competitors.

Cotterell was inducted into the Florida Journalism Hall of Fame in 2017. In announcing his retirement – again – in a 2022 column, his trademark wit was on display. "It’s been a good career,” he wrote. “Journalism sure beats working."

In addition to his wife, Cotterell is survived by his son, Senior Chief Petty Officer Christopher Cotterell, daughter-in-law, Meagan Cotterell, and seven grandchildren, all stationed with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Northwest; a brother, Anthony Cotterell of Valparaiso, Florida; a sister, Katherine Kennedy of Miami; and many nieces and nephews.

Private services for family, friends and colleagues will be held 2-4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025 at Culley’s MeadowWood Funeral Home, 1737 Riggins Road, Tallahassee. A public remembrance is being planned sometime next year.

Note: This obituary is condensed with permission from a story first published on the Tallahassee Democrat website, Nov. 24, 2025. [Create link:] Read the full story here. (https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2025/11/24/florida-mourns-journalism-legend-bill-cotterell/87449049007/)

[Create link:] Remembering Bill Cotterell (https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2025/11/24/tributes-pour-in-for-veteran-tallahassee-reporter-bill-cotterell/87452309007/ )