Journalism professor receives Murrow Award

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has named Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications Jack W. Mitchell the recipient of the 22nd annual Edward R. Murrow Award, public radio’s highest honor.

Mitchell, whose career spans public radio’s modern era, is the former director of Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).

Mitchell, who retired from his WPR post last year, was presented the award by Robert T. Coonrod, CPB president and CEO, at the opening session of the Public Radio Conference in San Francisco in late May.

“Jack Mitchell has given life to public radio’s values throughout his career,” said Coonrod. “He has brought them to the state network that has been his professional home and to the national organizations with which he has given his time and commitment. To say that public radio is better for his good work is to understate his contribution.”

Mitchell became Director of Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), a partnership between the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the Educational Communications Board, in 1976. During his twenty-one year tenure, he built WPR into one of the premiere, most extensive, university-based systems in the country. Today, WPR’s network of 20 stations serves the entire state and produces four national programs for the public radio system.

Mitchell made important contributions to public radio at the national level as well. When National Public Radio (NPR) was created in 1970, Mitchell was the new network’s first employee and was the first producer of “All Things Considered”. He subsequently assumed a leadership position at NPR during the financial emergency of the early 1980s.

Currently, he is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at UW–Madison, where he teaches and does research in radio journalism and public broadcasting.