In June 1993, he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Ohio State, in conjunction with his address during the university's commencement exercises. During his tenure there he covered Ohio State football as well as the riots that surrounded the school's decision to turn down a bid to the 1962 Rose Bowl.
While at Ohio State, he served as sports editor of the student newspaper, The Lantern. He received his BA and MA degrees in journalism and political science from The Ohio State University. He decided to become a journalist at the age of eleven and edited student newspapers in elementary school, Wilbur Wright Junior High School and John Marshall High School. In 2009, Random House published his fiction debut, The Rules of the Game.ĭownie grew up in and around Cleveland, Ohio. Downie was also a major contributor to Ten Blocks from the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968 has written many newspaper and magazine articles and co-authored “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” a major report on the state of the news media,published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
In 2003, The News About the News won the Goldsmith Award from the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s John F. Downie currently serves as Vice President At Large at the Washington Post Company, as Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and as a member of several advisory boards associated with journalism and public affairs.ĭownie is the author of four nonfiction books: Justice Denied (1971), Mortgage on America (1974), The New Muckrakers (1976) and The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril (2002), co-authored with Robert G. During Downie's tenure as Executive Editor, The Washington Post won 25 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper has won during the term of a single Executive Editor, including three Pulitzer Gold Medals for Public Service. Downie became Executive Editor upon the retirement of Ben Bradlee. He worked in the Post newsroom for 44 years as Executive Editor, Managing Editor, National Editor, London correspondent, Assistant Managing Editor for Metropolitan News, Deputy Metropolitan Editor, and as an award winning investigative and local reporter. (born May 1, 1942), the American journalist, was Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 1991-2008. He managed the Post's ascendency to the pinnacle of influence, circulation, and profitability, producing prizewinning investigative reporting with deep impact on American life, before the digital transformation of news media threatened the Post's future.Īt a dangerous time, when health and economic crises and partisanship are challenging the news media, Downie's judgment, fairness, and commitment to truth will inspire anyone who wants to know how journalism, at its best, works.Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. He wrestled with the Unabomber's threat to kill more people unless the Post published a rambling 30,000-word manifesto and he published important national security stories in defiance of presidents and top officials. He was one of the editors on the historic Watergate story and drove coverage of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Downie's leadership style differed from Bradlee's, but he played an equally important role over more than four decades in making the Post one of the world's leading news organizations. He would become a pioneering investigative reporter, news editor, foreign correspondent, and managing editor, before succeeding the legendary Ben Bradlee as executive editor. In 1964, as a 22-year-old Ohio State graduate with working-class Cleveland roots and a family to support, Len Downie landed an internship with the Washington Post. At a time when the role of journalism is especially critical, the former executive editor of the Washington Post writes about his nearly 50 years at the newspaper and the importance of getting at the truth.
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