Ben Bagdikian

Ben Bagdikian
Bagdikian in 1976
Born	Ben-Hur Haig Bagdikian (1920-01-30)January 30, 1920 Marash, Aleppo vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died	March 11, 2016(2016-03-11) (aged 96) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Nationality (legal)	American
Alma mater	Clark University
Occupations	Reporter critic professor
Years active	1947–1990
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	Army Air Forces
Years of service	1942−1946[1]
Rank	First lieutenant

Ben-hur Haig Bagdikian^[2] (January 30, 1920 – March 11, 2016) was an American journalist, news media critic and commentator,^[3] and university professor. An Armenian genocide survivor, he moved to the United States as an infant and began a journalism career after serving in World War II. He worked as a local reporter, investigative journalist and foreign correspondent for The Providence Journal. During his time there, Bagdikian won a Peabody Award and a Pulitzer Prize. In 1971, he received parts of the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg and successfully persuaded The Washington Post to publish them despite objections and threats from the Richard Nixon administration. He later taught at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and served as its dean from 1985 to 1988.

Bagdikian was a critic of the news media.^[4] His 1983 book The Media Monopoly, warning about the growing concentration of corporate ownership of news organizations, went through several editions and influenced, among others, Noam Chomsky. He has been hailed for his ethical standards and has been described by Robert W. McChesney as one of the finest journalists of the 20th century.