Dean Wakefield, ex-LAT staffer was 53

The former assistant editor in the L.A. Times opinion section also had edited at the San Francisco Chronicle opinion page and worked for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He died this week in San Francisco after a lengthy illness. Back in 1996, Wakefield briefly emerged from the obscurity where most newspaper editors work when 12 paragraphs of a Washington Post book review ran under his byline. The Chronicle's then-book editor admitted the mistake was her fault.