War, Media, and Propaganda

Ben Haig Bagdikian was born in Marash, Turkey on January 30, 1920. The family fled the massacre of Armenians when he was an infant. They settled in Stoneham, Massachusetts. He graduated from Clark University in 1941 and worked briefly as a reporter for The Springfield Morning Union in Massachusetts. After serving as a navigator in World War II, he joined The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin in Rhode Island in 1947. He was a member of a team that won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for deadline coverage of a bank robbery.

From 1963 to 1967, he was a Washington-based contributing editor of The Saturday Evening Post and wrote freelance articles for several publications including The New York Times Magazine. He studied the news media for the RAND Corporation from 1967 to 1969. After joining The Washington Post in 1970, he became an assistant managing editor. From 1972 to 1974, he wrote for The Columbia Journalism Review. He taught journalism at Berkeley College from 1976 until retiring in 1990.

His first book, In the Midst of Plenty: The Poor in America, was published in 1964. His other books included The Information Machines: Their Impact on Men and the Media, The Effete Conspiracy and Other Crimes by the Press, The Media Monopoly, and The New Media Monopoly. He also wrote the memoir Double Vision: Reflections on My Heritage, Life and Profession. He died on March 11, 2016 at the age of 96.

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