Bernard Redmont
Encyclopedia
Bernard Sidney Redmont is an American journalist and Professor of Journalism and later Dean of the College of Communication
at Boston University
.
, Redmont earned his Bachelor's degree at the City College of New York
(CCNY), Redmont received an M.S. from the Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism in 1939 and was awarded the school’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. He began his work in the profession of journalism at the old Brooklyn Daily Eagle at the age of 18. Redmont was a reporter and telegraph editor on the Herkimer, NY Evening Telegram in 1940 and 1941. After World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Marines and served as a Combat Correspondent in the Marshall Islands
. During and immediately after the war, he served as head of the News Division of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
(CIAA), sometimes known as "the Rockefeller Agency."
. He was Bureau Chief for World Report
(later U.S. News & World Report
), in Buenos Aires
in the late 1940s, during the dictatorship of Juan Peron
and his wife Evita Peron, and Paris
in the early 1950s. Continuing his reporting from Paris, he was head of the English desk of the Agence France-Presse
for many years. In 1961, Redmont served as President of the Anglo-American Press Association.
Corporation (Group W). During his time as Paris correspondent for Group W, he was granted an interview by a leading North Vietnamese diplomat in Paris, breaking the story which led to the Paris peace negotiations
. Redmont also covered the rise and fall of Charles De Gaulle
, the Prague Spring
and Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War
, and the struggles for human rights
of Andrei Sakharov
, Anatoly Sharansky, and other Soviet dissidents. He covered other major stories in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the former USSR. Redmont was Bureau Chief for CBS News
and reported on both radio and television from Moscow
(1976–1979) and Paris (1980–1981).
at Boston University
and served there through the 1980s. He is now Dean Emeritus of the College of Communication. During his academic career, he lectured widely in the U.S., France, Britain, Italy, Morocco, Russia, and China. Redmont is the author of Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent (University Press of America
, 1992). He contributed regularly to the now defunctTelevision Quarterly. He has become active in both the Executive Service Corps of New England and the International Executive Service Corps
, offering volunteer consulting in public relations and strategic planning services to nonprofit organizations and offering journalism training to television stations in newly democratized Bulgaria and Albania after the fall of the Iron Curtain
.
) veteran of World War II, during which he served as a Combat Correspondent in the U.S Marine Corps in the Marshall Islands
. He received the 1973 Overseas Press Club
of America (OPC) Award for Best Radio Reporting from Abroad for his Vietnam Peace Talks story. He had received a previous award from the OPC in 1968 for his coverage of the Six Day War in 1967. Redmont holds an honorary degree (Doctor of Humane Letters) from Florida International University
. He received the Columbia University Alumni Award "for the advancement of responsible journalism in all its forms" in 1986 and the City College of New York Townsend Harris Medal “for distinguished contributions in his chosen field of work and to the welfare of his fellow men” in 1991. Redmont was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1973 by French President Georges Pompidou
. In January 2011 he was promoted from "Chevalier" (Knight) to "Officier" (Officer) of the Legion of Honour by French President Nicolas Sarkozy
.
Who's Who in American Education, 2009 and previous editions
American Society of the French Legion of Honor Newsletter Vol. 11 #2 (2004), p. 2.
Biographies issued by CBS News
1976-81 and by Group W
Westinghouse Broadcasting 1960-1976.
News release, Boston University
Office of Public Relations, 1982.
Bernard S. Redmont, Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent (University Press of America
, 1992)
review of Bernard S. Redmont, Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspodennt: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/21/style/21iht-book_16.html
Boston University College of Communication
Boston University's College of Communication was founded on May 27, 1947, then called the School of Public Relations. Since 1947, the college has gone through many changes in both name and location Boston University's College of Communication was founded on May 27, 1947, then called the School of...
at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
.
Education and early career
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Redmont earned his Bachelor's degree at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
(CCNY), Redmont received an M.S. from the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Graduate School of Journalism in 1939 and was awarded the school’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. He began his work in the profession of journalism at the old Brooklyn Daily Eagle at the age of 18. Redmont was a reporter and telegraph editor on the Herkimer, NY Evening Telegram in 1940 and 1941. After World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Marines and served as a Combat Correspondent in the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
. During and immediately after the war, he served as head of the News Division of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
The Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs was a United States agency promoting inter-American cooperation during the 1940s, especially in commercial and economic areas...
(CIAA), sometimes known as "the Rockefeller Agency."
Foreign correspondent in Latin America and Europe
Redmont, who has a reading and speaking knowledge of French and Spanish, began his work as a foreign correspondent during his Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship in Europe and later in Mexico CityMexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. He was Bureau Chief for World Report
World Report
World Report is CBC Radio's morning news program, airing weekdays at 5, 6, 7, and 8 AM, and Saturdays and Sundays at 6, 7, 8, and 9 AM. It lasts 10 minutes...
(later U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
), in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
in the late 1940s, during the dictatorship of Juan Peron
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
and his wife Evita Peron, and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in the early 1950s. Continuing his reporting from Paris, he was head of the English desk of the Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
for many years. In 1961, Redmont served as President of the Anglo-American Press Association.
Broadcasting career as a foreign correspondent
Redmont's broadcasting career began with the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) and continued with Westinghouse BroadcastingWestinghouse Broadcasting
The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndication....
Corporation (Group W). During his time as Paris correspondent for Group W, he was granted an interview by a leading North Vietnamese diplomat in Paris, breaking the story which led to the Paris peace negotiations
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Redmont also covered the rise and fall of Charles De Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
, the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
and Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
, and the struggles for human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
of Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
, Anatoly Sharansky, and other Soviet dissidents. He covered other major stories in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the former USSR. Redmont was Bureau Chief for CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
and reported on both radio and television from Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
(1976–1979) and Paris (1980–1981).
Career in journalism education
After his return to the United States in the early 1980s, Redmont became Professor of Journalism and later Dean of the College of CommunicationBoston University College of Communication
Boston University's College of Communication was founded on May 27, 1947, then called the School of Public Relations. Since 1947, the college has gone through many changes in both name and location Boston University's College of Communication was founded on May 27, 1947, then called the School of...
at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
and served there through the 1980s. He is now Dean Emeritus of the College of Communication. During his academic career, he lectured widely in the U.S., France, Britain, Italy, Morocco, Russia, and China. Redmont is the author of Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent (University Press of America
University Press of America
University Press of America is an academic book publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, it was founded in 1975 and boasts of having published "more than 10,000 academic, scholarly, and biographical titles in many disciplines"...
, 1992). He contributed regularly to the now defunctTelevision Quarterly. He has become active in both the Executive Service Corps of New England and the International Executive Service Corps
International Executive Service Corps
International Executive Service Corps is an American private international economic development not-for-profit organization. Its head office is located in Washington, D.C. Geekcorps is a division of IESC. IESC was founded in 1964 by David Rockefeller, States M. Mead III, and other prominent...
, offering volunteer consulting in public relations and strategic planning services to nonprofit organizations and offering journalism training to television stations in newly democratized Bulgaria and Albania after the fall of the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
.
Honors and awards
Redmont is a decorated (Purple HeartPurple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...
) veteran of World War II, during which he served as a Combat Correspondent in the U.S Marine Corps in the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
. He received the 1973 Overseas Press Club
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member...
of America (OPC) Award for Best Radio Reporting from Abroad for his Vietnam Peace Talks story. He had received a previous award from the OPC in 1968 for his coverage of the Six Day War in 1967. Redmont holds an honorary degree (Doctor of Humane Letters) from Florida International University
Florida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
. He received the Columbia University Alumni Award "for the advancement of responsible journalism in all its forms" in 1986 and the City College of New York Townsend Harris Medal “for distinguished contributions in his chosen field of work and to the welfare of his fellow men” in 1991. Redmont was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1973 by French President Georges Pompidou
Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...
. In January 2011 he was promoted from "Chevalier" (Knight) to "Officier" (Officer) of the Legion of Honour by French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
.
Sources
Who's Who in America, 2009 and previous editionsWho's Who in American Education, 2009 and previous editions
American Society of the French Legion of Honor Newsletter Vol. 11 #2 (2004), p. 2.
Biographies issued by CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
1976-81 and by Group W
Westinghouse Broadcasting
The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndication....
Westinghouse Broadcasting 1960-1976.
News release, Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
Office of Public Relations, 1982.
Bernard S. Redmont, Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent (University Press of America
University Press of America
University Press of America is an academic book publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, it was founded in 1975 and boasts of having published "more than 10,000 academic, scholarly, and biographical titles in many disciplines"...
, 1992)
External links
New York Times / International Herald TribuneInternational Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
review of Bernard S. Redmont, Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspodennt: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/21/style/21iht-book_16.html