Journalist and author Haynes Johnson dies at 81

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Haynes Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who migrated from newspapers to television, books and teaching, died Friday. He was 81.

The Washington Post reported he died at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. In a statement to the Post newsroom, Managing Editor Kevin Merida said Johnson died of a heart attack.

Johnson was awarded a Pulitzer in 1966 for reporting on the civil rights struggle in Selma, Ala., while with the Washington Star. He spent about 12 years at the Star before joining its chief rival, the Washington Post, in 1969. He was a columnist for the Post from 1977 to 1994.

Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie told the newspaper, "Haynes was a pioneer in looking at the mood of the country to understand a political race. Haynes was going around the country talking to people, doing portraits and finding out what was on people's minds. He was a kind of profiler of the country."

The author, co-author or editor of 18 books, Johnson also appeared regularly on the PBS programs "Washington Week in Review" and "The NewsHour." He was a member of the "NewsHour" historians panel from 1994 to 2004.

"I knew I wanted to write about America, our times, both in journalism and I also wanted to do books," he told C-SPAN in 1991. "I wanted to try to see if I could combine what I do as a newspaper person as well as step back a little bit and write about American life, and I was lucky enough to be able to do that."

Johnson had taught at the University of Maryland since 1998.

"Hundreds of our students learned how to cover public affairs from one of the best journalists America has ever known," Merrill College Dean Lucy Dalglish said in a written statement released by the university. "It was equally obvious to anyone who looked through the window . that Haynes was in his element in the classroom. His entire face lit up when he was in the middle of a classroom discussion."

Johnson also had teaching stints at George Washington University, Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania.

He was born in New York City on July 9, 1931. His mother, Emmie, was a pianist and his father, Malcolm Johnson, a newspaperman. The elder Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Sun in 1949 for his reporting on the city's dockyards, and his series suggested the story told in the Oscar-winning film "On the Waterfront."

Johnson studied journalism and history at the University of Missouri, graduating in 1952. After serving three years in the Army during the Korean War, he earned a master's degree in American history from the University of Wisconsin in 1956.

Johnson resisted working in New York journalism to avoid being compared to his father. He worked for nearly a year at the Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal before joining the Star as a reporter.

His books include "The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election," (2009) with Dan Balz; "The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years" (2001); and "The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point" (1996) with David S. Broder.

Balz said said Johnson was already a legend before they got to work together at the Post.

"I don't say this lightly. He was a great journalist," Balz said Friday. "He had everything a good reporter should have, which was a love of going to find the story, a commitment to thorough reporting and then kind of an understanding of history and the importance of giving every story kind of the broadest possible sweep and context."

Johnson married Julia Ann Erwin in 1954; they had three daughters and two sons and later divorced. In 2002, Johnson married Kathryn A. Oberly, an associate judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-24-US-Obit-Haynes-Johnson/id-81b7aeb9b3c747f79bf7088ee64b72f4

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