Visit our new community guide site. DIGITAL PRESS Latest news Classified Ads Search Feedback SP Magazine Advertising OTHER SITES DigiGuide Campus Spark Bulldog HFR Features About Us Home Page Click here! You can advertise in this space.

Cronkite to honor former 'Washington Post' editor By Lidia E. Kelly State Press Two legendary newsmen will meet in the Valley Wednesday to share a handshake, a smile and some of the biggest stories of the 20th century. An expected 1,200 people will crowd Scottsdale's Phoenician Resort to commemorate the career of Benjamin Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post. While Bradlee was the Post's editor, he oversaw the newspaper's coverage of the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pentagon Papers, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Walter Cronkite, former CBS news anchor who recently reappeared on CNN to cover John Glenn's return to space, will present Bradlee with the 1998 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and Telecommunication. Each year the Walter Cronkite Endowment for Journalism and Telecommunication Board of Trustees at ASU awards an individual who has distinguished himself or herself for a lifetime in media work, said Douglas Anderson, director of the Board. "Ben Bradlee is one of the ... most influential people in contemporary journalism," Anderson said. Bradlee started his career at The Washington Post in 1948 as a reporter covering federal courts and worked there until 1951. That year he became the press attaché for the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. In 1953 he left the position to join Newsweek as an European correspondent. In 1965 Bradlee rejoined The Washington Post as managing editor and later became executive editor in 1968. He retired from the latter position in 1991 and currently serves as the newspaper's vice president at-large. A close friend of the late President John F. Kennedy, Bradlee paid a tribute to the president with two books: That Special Grace in 1964 and Conversation with Kennedy in 1975. He also wrote his memoirs, A Good Life: Newspapers and Other Adventures, which was published three years ago. Bradlee's schedule won't allow him to visit the University and talk to a larger group of students, said Nancy Dean, a development officer at the College of Public Programs, which is organizing the event. But Cronkite will stay in the Valley longer and speak to classes in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication Thursday.