04/14/97

CONTACT: Ralph Izard at 614/593-2590

ATHENS, Ohio -- Jack Nelson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Washington, D.C., bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, will visit Ohio University's Athens campus Friday (April 18) to receive the Carr Van Anda Award from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.

Nelson will be recognized for his enduring contributions to journalism during a ceremony at 8 p.m. Friday in Scripps Hall's Anderson Auditorium. After the presentation, he will deliver a speech titled "The Van Anda Challenge: Serious and Reliable Journalism for the 21st Century." The event is free and open to the public. As part of his visit, Nelson also will speak to several journalism classes.

Nelson began his career as a reporter for the Biloxi (Miss.) Daily Herald in 1947. He was a staff writer for the Atlanta Constitution from 1952-65, and in 1960 earned a Pulitzer Prize for his series exposing irregularities in the world's largest mental institution in Milledgeville, Ga.

He served as the Atlanta bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times from 1965-70 and was a Times investigative reporter from 1970-75. Nelson received the Drew Pearson Award for Investigative Reporting in 1975, the same year he was named to his current post.

Nelson is the author of several books, including Terror in the Night (The Klan's Campaign Against the Jews) (1993) and Beyond Reagan--The Politics of Upheaval (1986), and frequently appears on the public television program "Washington Week in Review." He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The Carr Van Anda Award is named for the former managing editor credited with shaping The New Your Times' national reputation early this century. Van Anda attended Ohio University for two years in the 1880s before pursuing his journalism career.